Inside Track
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: On a blue February day, Kyle and Liz make a pact to take chances on love.
1. Chapter 1

A dreary winter storm had come to the deserts of New Mexico, and Kyle looked out of the doors of the High school for just a moment, depressed by the steady flow of waters from the heavens above. Someone opened up the inner doors leading from the hallway into the stairwell and anteroom, and Kyle looked around to see who had accidentally interrupted his brooding. The person who he saw was Liz, once an ex-girlfriend who he'd had a bad breakup with, but now a fairly good friend. She was dressed casually for school, but still Kyle couldn't help but admire the slender beauty of her figure, and her pretty face with big dark brown eyes, and wonder what might have been. But it wasn't good to dwell on those kinds of feelings for a friend, especially one who... "Hey, Liz, what's up?"

"Oh, nothing really," she replied in a fairly flat tone of voice. "Got the February blues I guess... and you?"

"Oh yeah, me too," Kyle volunteered. "Which I suppose is why I'm standing here and peeking out occasionally at the unusually wet weather." Kyle waved at the outer doors without touching them.

Liz laughed very slightly. "Sounds fun. I think I'll try it." And so she stepped up next to Kyle and pushed one of the doors open just far enough to take a look. Kyle shuffled even closer to Liz, just so that he'd see most of what she saw, though he wasn't sure what difference that would make. One narrow section of the rained-on front schoolyard was pretty much like any other.

Liz sighed with heavy ennui as she saw the rain coming down - and then gasped with another reaction entirely. Hurrying towards the doorway in the rain was a teenaged boy, taller than Kyle himself was and with a darker head of hair, about as deep a shade as Liz's long straight cocoa locks. He didn't have a jacket to protect him from the wet weather, and as a result his light grey t-shirt was clinging to his chest a bit more tightly than Kyle wanted to see it, though somehow he found it hard to look away for a second. And then he wrenched his attention to focus on Liz's reaction, and it was hard to say whether or not she wished that shirt were even tighter.

Of course, that hadn't been just any random cute guy. Even as drenched as he was, Kyle could recognize Max Evans, and he knew that Liz had as well. Rain was staring to spatter into the anteroom, but she didn't let the door close.

Max jogged quite close, and then he suddenly seemed to notice who was staring out at him from the shelter of the school. Without a word, Max hurried by, probably hunting for a doorway that didn't have the two of them standing in it.

Once he had rushed out of her field of view, (and Liz had leaned slightly to delay that loss of contact for a fraction of a second,) Liz finally allowed the door to slam shut, and let out a long sigh. "Oh, you *SO* want him back," Kyle blurted out before he had a chance to think of if it was a good thing to say or not. Liz turned to him and didn't reply for a long moment.

"I... I *can't*. You of all people should know why, Kyle."

"The I guess that not one of all the people in the world understand why," Kyle replied eloquently, "because I've tried and tried to figure it and keep coming up with the notion that something doesn't add up. Okay, so last November you came to me and asked for my help playing a trick on Evans..."

"Kyle, please!!" Liz hissed in sudden anguished fury. "Anybody could be listening!" She pointed meaningfully up the stairwell.

Kyle really didn't think that anybody was crouching up there to eavesdrop on them - the only reason anybody came into a stairwell was to go up or down stairs - there wasn't any further up to go from the second floor, and they'd hear anybody coming down. Plus, Kyle thought he'd have heard the door opening on the second floor landing.

But he couldn't really be sure about that, so he immediately cast his mind in search of a more private place to talk. Stepping outside would be very wet for the obvious reasons, so... He reached out and gently grabbed Liz, leading her back into the hallway. It was early, more than forty minutes until the first bell would start their day of classes, but school was already scattered with teenagers. Kyle carefully checked to make sure that nobody was paying any attention to him or her, and especially that Max Evans hadn't appeared again, before pulling Liz into the janitor's closet. She chuckled dryly as he closed the door.

"Just needed a place to say this where no-one could overhear us," he reminded her. "So, we tricked Max into thinking that you and I did the nasty. Why you wanted him to think that, and how you were sure he'd come by your balcony window just in time to catch us before your parents came home and got the same false impression, I don't know and don't care. To me, it's in the past."

Liz quirked an eyebrow at that. "And what's more, I don't think that Max cares either," Kyle pressed on. "The way I heard it, he refused to believe what you arranged for him to see for weeks, and then finally relented just so that the strain wouldn't hurt your friendship. He's not about to turn around and start something up with Tess without a LOT more pushing than you've mustered up so far, if ever, and if you want him back, you could probably get him with a snap of your fingers." Kyle reconsidered his own words a moment. "Make that if you *admitted* you wanted him back, I guess, because it's pretty freakin' obvious to the rest of us who know you well."

"Come on, Kyle," Liz sighed, tossing a stray lock of hair back across her shoulder. "Things aren't quite that simple..."

"Why not? Would Max burst into flame if he looks at some other girl than Tess? I really don't think so." His tone became softly inviting. "You're just aching to whip up some unbearably cute and girly Valentine's Day surprise for Max, admit it. I could see it in your face earlier. And you know that he'd just eat it up with a spoon, too, because that's the kind of sensitive and soulful dreamboat that he is."

Liz whined softly, unable to hide the temptation, and when she did manage to raise a kind of objection, it was a single, distasteful word. "Tess..."

Now Kyle grinned. "No dice, Parker. You just let ME take care of Tess. I'm pretty sure that I can occupy her effectively enough that she won't interfere..."

"That, um, that really wasn't what I meant about Tess, Kyle," Liz grumbled, but something in her eyes had caught fire. "You... you like Tess yourself, huh?"

"Umm... okay, yeah," Kyle confessed reluctantly. "I wasn't sure of whether to try making a play for her, with Valentine's Day around the corner, because she's kind of a lot to take on all at once. But if you're in this with me, yeah, I won't deny that I'll enjoy it if things go all right. And if you manage to take Max while Tess is distracted, then maybe she'll stop stalking him..."

"I'm sorry, that's the man I love," Liz joked. "Stop talking about him like he's some prize to be passed around from girl to girl."

"Well, it's not like Tess has Max now," Kyle clarified, but didn't pursue the subject further. "So, umm, do we have a deal?"

Liz sighed. "I... I dunno. I'm tempted, I'll admit that much." She sighed. "I don't think I have the best of luck with big Valentine's Day plans."

That made Kyle laugh softly... and gave him the idea for a new line of persuasion. "You know, last year on the Blind Date contest, when I was hanging out with Max, there was a bunch of stuff that I didn't really understand until I found out his secret."

"Well yeah, I kinduv figured that, actually," Liz admitted. "Things he said that didn't make much sense, things that he did that you couldn't quite figure out how... and the fact that he actually got that wildly drunk on just a few drops of alcohol."

"Yeah, all of that stuff," Kyle said, nodding. "But the weirdest thing of all might be his mental state. He was completely focused on you, Liz - and determined to win you back, but completely non-exclusive about it. Because I cared about you too, and was wallowing a bit about our breakup that night, he was, umm, was quite willing to share." Liz's eyes went round. "Not that you should probably pay that much attention to that part - it's not something that I think he'd even consider, sober. But... but no matter what mental state Max Evans is in, you're his whole world, Liz. Don't - don't you owe him, or yourself, this one chance? Yeah, Valentine's Day can suck sometimes. I... I do remember freshman year when Derek Jenster was following you around all day and you actually had to call him names to get him to quit crowding you." He sighed. "But... but I do believe that it's also a moment when, just occasionally, love gets a miracle."

"Oh, my god," Liz breathed. "So you believe in Valentine's day miracles??"

"I... okay, possibly I shouldn't have said it quite that way," Kyle muttered, blushing. But he couldn't quite bring himself to take his words back in any more overt way. "Are you open to miracles, Liz??"

"Oh, man." She groaned. "I - I don't know about miracles, honestly. But... but I think I do believe in extra chances... so, yes, you've got yourself a deal." She hopped on the spot, probably from nervousness or sudden excitement. "So, what have you got up your sleeve to distract Tess with?"

"Umm... that's a surprise," Kyle managed to blurt out. Actually, he didn't really have any scrap or fragment of a plan, but it didn't seem like the best moment in which to admit that.

"Alright." Somewhat to his surprise, Liz didn't seem to be suspicious of his cageyness or disappointed by it. "Well, I - I'm going to go try and find Maria. Plan out my own Valentine's Day gig - with Max!! Hmm, and maybe Isabel would have some ideas too... okay, see you soon Kyle!" Liz leaned in to very lightly peck Kyle on the cheek with her lips before hurrying out of the closet. Kyle smiled until the door closed again, then stepped against the wall, meaning to lean against it and maybe gently bump his head against the hard surface.

It didn't work out like that. Kyle's foot happened to come down so that it was putting pressure on the head of a hoe or some other garden implement, and the long wooden handle pivoted towards him and bashed him quite hard on the temple. "OWW! Man, come on, that's just too much."

----------

"I... I dunno man. Good luck and all, really, but I think you might be better off asking someone else," Michael muttered to Kyle as he shucked off an old and patched raincoat. "I - well, I'm having enough trouble trying to figure out what to do about my own Valentine's Day, and Maria. And I don't really have a good track record with this sort of thing. My advice is probably worse than nothing."

"Come on, man, I just need an idea," Kyle pushed. "To start with. It doesn't have to be a great idea, but..." At that point, his determination and his charity pitch more or less dried up. "So, you and Maria, huh? I didn't realize that you were on again."

"Well, umm, it's a little hard to tell," Michael admitted. "We've been hanging out a few times lately, kiss sometimes, and she hasn't really been getting on my back about 'relationship' stuff. But we exchanged special gifts back at Christmas, and that worked out okay. Mostly because of the backup gift that Isabel left for me. So, umm, I've basically been figuring that we're not really dating, but I have to do something for Valentine's Day anyway or I'll mess up a relatively good thing."

"Okay, yeah, that actually doesn't sound too bad," Kyle admitted. "Makes sense. You're not as stupid about this stuff as it seems."

"Actually, most of that realization is kinduv to Max's credit, so, umm... so there." Michael winked, and Kyle sighed. Max was the one person who he couldn't - well, just maybe he could ask for Max's help with the Tess thing and keep quiet about Liz's surprise for Max, but that could get awkward and the secret might come out anyway.

"By the way, what did Maria end up getting YOU for Christmas? I never heard about that part... just the bit about those pearl earrings? And how much of those have you paid back to Isabel, too?"

Michael laughed. "Umm, Maria got me a two-pack of sports disks to watch... the NHL's greatest fights and a special edition of the 1988 Stanley Cup Game 5 - possibly the Gretsky Oilers greatest moment." Michael smiled. "And I think I've paid off a bit over half of my installments to Isabel."

Kyle smiled. "Okay, well, good luck and everything - if you need my help, don't be shy about asking. Us guys have to band together around this time of the year."

"Yeah, and not make each other's jobs too difficult by setting an unreachably high standard," Michael said pointedly.

"Hey, I'll try," Kyle said. "But Tess is a tough cookie, and it might take a lot to melt her heart..."

"You're making a move on Tess?" someone said from behind Kyle, and he recognized the voice as he spun around. Sure enough, Maria was heading towards Michael's locker - he should probably have expected that. "Wow, I wonder what your Dad will say when he finds out."

That particular issue, about his father, and the fact that Tess was living under their roof, was something that Kyle had been trying not to think about while he had other bridges to cross. "Ehh. Yes, I am, but - well, have you seen Liz yet this morning, Maria?"

"Liz?" Maria repeated. "Um... no, actually, I haven't - just rushed inside, and - well, kinduv made a beeline for here." She smiled shyly at Michael, who managed to return the look, though Kyle didn't tend to think of Guerin as being very good at 'shy' ordinarily. (Then again, he was good with the broody loner card, which was most of the time just shy with attitude.) "Why, was, umm, was Liz looking for me? Did she say so?"

"Umm, yeah, she mentioned something about that when I left her company a little while ago," I said. "Probably nothing too urgent, though."

"Well, thanks," Michael said, "and, umm... see you later?" Kyle nearly frowned before he caught the hint. So he said his goodbyes and hurried away to let the two of them have whatever private time they wanted.

*Do I want to go and ask anybody else for his or her advice?* Kyle wondered to himself as he walked down the hall next to the cafeteria. Talking to anybody on the football team about this - well, their input seemed to be not quite what he needed at the moment, Kyle had to admit, but he wasn't sure who in the 'alien club' he could go to either. Tess was right out as well - or at least, going to Tess would not be a function of advice, but diving into the project straight away - well, either diving straight in or trying to forget about it and just hang around her as if Valentine's day didn't exist. Max might be good at the sweet and sensitive stuff, but things would probably get a little uncomfortable when Max realized that Kyle was attempting to put the moves on Tess - or at least, Kyle was worried about that. Max wasn't terribly emotionally attached to Tess, and part of him resented her for the way that she had disrupted his romance with Liz, all of that was true enough. However, on the other hand, Tess was very hot, and having somebody that cute always hanging around and being super-nice to him - Kyle really doubted that there could be any seventeen year old guy, no matter what his DNA was like, who wouldn't like that treatment a bit, deep down inside. And Kyle certainly didn't want to give away the fact of Liz's end of the bargain to Max, and ruin the element of surprise for her.

Alex Whitman was charming in a slightly goofy way, too, but apparently he'd been acting a little cool towards Max's sister Isabel ever since he got back from Sweden last week, and that, in itself, was strange itself that Max wasn't sure if he would feel comfortable around him, though Alex was usually good company in a slightly geeky way. And that left... Isabel herself, who would probably never let Kyle live it down if he asked her for her advice, especially if Kyle did manage to attract Tess' interest by Valentine's, regardless of whether or not anything Isabel had offered was actually useful. So...

It was at about that point that Kyle bumped into Pam Troy outside the girls' washroom - Pam was dressed up in some ridiculous pink and red outfit, including a very odd looking hat, a huge heart plastered over the front of her T-shirt, and more little pink hearts (possibly candies) tied to the ends of her normally curly dark tresses. Startled by this evidence that he hadn't been paying any attention, Kyle mumbled an apology, and hurried over to see if Tess was at her locker. He wouldn't do anything yet, but he could watch her reaction to the valentine's decorations and such that were already up around the school, (and mention Pam,) and maybe hit upon something that would help plan his strategy. She'd probably be a bit surprised if he *didn't* either wait at his own locker or try to find her before first period, after all. That was something that they went through most days. (Sometimes they were both waiting for the other, or both gone to try the others, and so they missed up, but nobody had quite wanted to cross the line into arranging a schedule, yet.)

She was there when he turned the corner, looking into that little dime-store mirror with the sticky glue back that he had given her about a week and a half after she'd been moved into the Valenti house. Apparently Tess, too, had just rushed inside from the parking lot, because her golden hair was obviously wet enough that almost all of her curliness had been temporarily drenched away. She shook a light windbreaker jacket out, sending little drops of water falling on the tile floor, and then started wrapping it up to hang on the locker's tiny hook. *No time like the present I guess.* He headed over, purposefully coming up right behind Tess so that if she caught a glimpse of the mirror again she would spot him.

"Hey, Kyle." Tess turned around and smiled at him, and Kyle nearly stumbled with the momentary sensation of his knees turning into jelly. The rain seemed to have the effect of heightening Tess Harding's natural beauty as it washed away her carefully applied makeup facade... and maybe, just possibly, the knowledge of Kyle's deal with Liz, to actually pursue Tess, made him even more vulnerable to her allure, even if Tess herself didn't guess any of that yet. "Careful there, bud." She reached out a hand to steady him, and there seemed to be a faint tingle that came with the skin-to-skin contact. "So, how early did you head out this morning? I didn't even think to look for you until I was done in the bathroom."

"Umm. Uhh..." *Think, dammit brain! You've got to be able to at least form a relatively innocuous sentence.* "Around Seven thirty I think. Got to the guy's locker room before I found out that the offensive backfield practice had been called off, on account of the rain. Coach normally seems to LIKE having us try to complete passes when it's pouring down, but today he took mercy it seems."

"Oh, okay." Tess turned back towards her locker, grabbed a three-ring binder with solid purple covers out of it, and hung the jacket up. "It's a bit blue to get this much rain here in Roswell, isn't it? Reminds me a bit of Rhode Island - but then again, what can you do about the weather, huh?"

Kyle smiled at Tess turned back to him and leaned in close. "What, don't your powers work on clouds??"

That made her blink. "Umm... have to admit, I'm not quite sure. Ed always told me to never try anything that would have wide area effects unless I was sure what I was doing... and weather manipulation would seem to apply there." Finally put together, Tess closed her locker door and started to lead the way towards their first class. "So, what did you do, stuck in here without any practice?"

"Umm, well, first a few of us guys played a bit of round ball inside the gym," Kyle admitted. "And then I went off to the anteroom and stared out at the r... WHOA!" Kyle probably overreacted to the gigantic mockup of a deluxe chocolate box that was standing in the middle of the hallway, but he was hoping to evoke some telling response out of the girl next to him.

"Oh, man, all of this valentine's stuff is just so lame," she declared, shaking her head. "Like, I don't think there's a single thing about this holiday that isn't unutterably tacky... just a second." She pointed to the eraser room door. "I'm gonna pop in there a moment to blow-dry myself. The wet hair is really getting on my nerves."

Kyle's eyes went a little wide. "You've got a hair dryer in there?" he asked, pointing to Tess' small purse. Even a miniature hot air wand would probably take up most of the space inside. Too late he realized his mistake, and what a spectacularly dumb question it had been.

"Oh please," Tess reminded him. "Like I need electrical coils just to heat up air." She grinned for a moment before heading over to the eraser room door. But before she'd even gotten it open much, she slammed it closed again and rushed back over to Kyle. "Okay, I guess I should have been expecting that."

"What, it was in use for other things?" Kyle said. "Yeah, it's pretty popular around this time of year... not everybody thinks that Valentine's doesn't have some sort of redeeming value." Sigh. "Anyone I'd know?"

"Well, I didn't get a great look," she reminded him, "but it kinduv looked like Tommy Franter and Evalinne, the Italian exchange student girl."

Hmm. "Not bad, Tommy." He was one of Kyle's old football team buds, (though he didn't hang around with him too much lately,) and the new girl from the student exchange program had caught many eyes among the young men of Roswell - exotically beautiful, with deep aquamarine eyes and rich, curly brown hair with lighter brown highlights.

"Yeah, I would've thought she could do better," Tess remarked absently. "Mind if we take a detour to the girls' room now?"

"Umm, sure." Kyle suddenly realized that Tess had already turned around and headed for the bathrooms, and Kyle had followed her without even noticing. "I've always wanted to see it - and thank you for offering."

"Not like that, you goof," Tess said, swatting him energetically but not terribly hard. "I'll go into the bathroom and try to find some way to dry off. You wait outside."

"Yes, dear," Kyle said, wondering if Tess would pick up on that little joke. "Can't blame a guy for trying, huh?" Tess shot him a doubtful look. "Umm, speaking of tacky Valentine's Day stuff, you should see what Pam's wearing today. I nearly bumped into her just outside the girl's room."

"Hmm." Tess considered that. "What was it like?"

"Nah, I'm not going to spoil the impact," Kyle decided. "Unless she's gone back into boring street clothes before you get a chance to see her today."

Tess shot a sidelong look at Kyle, and he wondered if she was going to try a more persuasive tack of getting the information, but maybe she thought better of it and stayed silent the rest of the way to the washrooms.

-----------

Meanwhile, up on the second floor north wing of the school building, Liz was trying her own persuasive routine on Alex.

"Come on, I really need a guy's help with this - a sweet guy's help, and you and Max are probably the sweetest guys in the whole school." Alex rolled his eyes... he was pretty tired of hearing how sweet and nice he was by now. "You know what I mean. If I tried to ask Kyle or Michael, they might say something about showing up buck naked between Max's sheets..."

"Well, don't knock that until you've tried it," Alex remarked, but Liz shook her head.

"Seriously. If you were going to name your ideal Valentine's Day fantasy, what would she do to blow your heart away??"

"She?" Alex joked. "She who??"

"She whoever," Liz insisted. "I don't really care if Isabel, Leanna, or Willow from 'Buffy' is the girl of your dreams at present, I'm just interested in the setting."

"Hmm, well, I'll have to think about this for a while," Alex mentioned. "And... and I don't really think that my own preferences will carry over to Max *that* much. We're very different people..."

"I know, but maybe it'll give me a place to start," Liz pleaded. "I... I really do want to go through with this, but I have to admit that I'm really pretty scared."

"Aww," Alex said softly. "Okay, well... for me, and if it was someone that I wasn't with, who I had a bit of baggage with but still really liked--" Liz nodded to confirm that qualification. "I'd want something understated and a bit mysterious. A note showing up when I'd least expect it from 'a secret admirer.' A small, but cool present showing up in my locker. Enigmatic clue leading me to a particular movie theater, (with my ticket paid for in advance,) and that kind of thing."

"Hmm..." Liz considered that. "I... I can work with that. Thanks a LOT!!" She threw her arms around Alex's body briefly. "So, umm... now that I've brought up the subject, anything on the horizon with you for Valentine's Day? I know that Willow Rosenberg is somewhat off the table... Isabel? Leanna??"

"Well, Leanna said that she'd call me as soon as she gets home from school, which is about 8 am our time."

"Aww... I didn't realize that their time was so far away from ours," Liz said. "Do they have Valentine's day in Sweden?"

"Yeah, it's not much different from ours - a bit less commercial, but catching up fast."

"Oh." Liz thought about that for a few seconds, then put it aside. "And... and what about Isabel? Or am I not supposed to talk about her because of Leanna."

Alex sighed softly. "No, of course you can ask about Isabel, or tell me things about her too." Liz giggled. "I still care about Isabel very much, yes. Leanna knows about her, and I know that I'm not the only guy she's fond of either. We're trying to be realistic about this long distance thing, but at the same time, I'm not going to go chasing after Isabel Evans this Valentine's day, or let her catch me without making it quite a challenging chase." He sighed. "Aside from that, whatever will be will be."

"Hmm," Liz considered. "So, you'd let Isabel steal you away from Leanna, just maybe... if she's very patient, and very good. That's what I'm hearing," she told him with a big, slightly teasing grin.

"Hey, you say 'steal' as if there isn't enough of me to go around," Alex kidded back. "Leanna and I aren't committed and exclusive - no reason I couldn't have two Valentine's, huh?"

"Umm, I guess not," Liz agreed. "Though trying to juggle Isabel and a girl who's in a time zone nine hours away might be a balancing act you're not up to." Liz charaded a seesaw lever with one weight very close up and the other very far away. The long arm of the seesaw quickly turned into a catapult that would presumably have tossed Leanna into the vicinity of India or something like that.

"Hmm, yeah, good point," Alex admitted. "Oh, hi Maria, what's the word?"

"That's what I was about to ask you - or, actually, ask Liz I suppose. Kyle said that you had big Valentine's news or something."

Liz was laughing softly again by this point. "Wait a second," Alex put in. "How come Kyle knows already?"

"Well, there's part of it that I didn't tell you yet," Liz said. "You see..."

"Wait a second," Maria put in. "I think I know some about the Kyle part. Tell me about the you part first, Liz..."

Liz sighed a drawn-out sigh, looking back and forth between her two oldest friends. "Patience, my dear ones. All will be revealed in time, and not too much of it. So, I bumped into Kyle at the foot of a stairwell this morning..."

And that was when the five-minute warning bell for classes sounded, of course.

----------

"Hey there!" Kyle jumped slightly at the unexpected voice. He had just been heading out of his last class for the morning, world history, (blahh,) and hadn't been expecting Tess to be waiting for him outside as soon as he got out. Especially since she'd had class of her own - well, but Mister Wilton had kept them for nearly two minutes after the bell, talking about homework assignments and some sort of dress-up festival that a historical society would be throwing. He was a definite stickler for his own authority, and had even said straight out "The bell does not dismiss you - *I* dismiss you," earlier that term. (And sent Tommy Whalen to detention for four days because he walked out of the door right after he said that - which the principal and someone from the school board had upheld after Tommy's parents appealed.)

So Tess could have gotten from Sociology, which was just down the hall, in the time that she'd have had. But still, Kyle hadn't been expecting it. "Umm, what's up?"

"Nothing much. Cafeteria's probably going to be jam and packed, since the rain's still bucketing down, so I was thinking that maybe we could eat lunch together in the senior bio room. They don't have any clubs or anything in there today."

Kyle smiled. That was a class that they'd be sharing after the lunch period - they were lab partners, although there hadn't been that many 'lab' assignments, and it was true that a bunch of students often spent some of the lunch period in there, working on minor assignments or playing portable video games that sort of thing. On the other hand... "Umm, I've actually got one thing that I've gotta do, and then I'll meet you there, okay??"

"What is it? I'd rather tag along."

"Sorry, umm... guy business," Kyle blurted out, not sure what Tess would think of that, but pretty certain that she wouldn't insist on watching. In fact... ooh, what if she thought he meant he had to... ugh. Well, it couldn't be helped now, and if she asked about it later, he could deny that sort of thing with absolute honesty. During his morning study hall in second class, Kyle had managed to exchange a few notes with Liz about valentine's strategy without being spotted by the teacher-monitor, and one particular idea, of being somewhat mysterious and sending gifts without any indication of his own identity to go along with them, had struck home. So he headed off, after stopping by his locker to switch a few books and pick up his sack lunch, to the public payphones near the Administration office, and made a call to a delivery business. Given the lousy weather, he'd expected to face some sort of wisecrack from the girl answering the phone, or even an unusually high service charge, but apparently they were more professional than he'd even hoped.

The scene in room 208 was also somewhat on the calm side - about five other students had gotten the idea of eating lunch in the room, but Kyle and Tess were the only mixed-gender group - Arianne Lewis and Tania Murphy were up near the front, quietly chatting about Kyle-knew-not-what, and three sophomores who Kyle tended to think of as potheads were over on the other side of the room, making more noise than the food they managed to eat. And yes, there were a few other people who drifted in as Kyle munched on his sandwich and Tess picked at her tomato slice pizza, mostly doing some of the reading for class, as far as Kyle could tell.

The surprise didn't show up until about five or six minutes before class was supposed to start. A guy in a denim-blue uniform poked his head in, and then stepped through the front doorway to the room. "Umm, is there a Tess Harding here?"

"Umm, yeah, 'tis I," Tess said, blinking just twice like she did when she was a bit uncertain of what was happening.

"Here you go." The guy picked up his load from outside the room, and planted it on the lab table, a little ways away from what was left of her lunch - an arrangement of very wet pink lilies. Kyle hadn't thought about that aspect, but he didn't really mind - the flowers didn't seem to have suffered from the wetting down. He was mostly just trying not to give anything away on his face as Tess reached out for the tiny little card and opened it up.

For a second, her pretty face looked snarled and angry, as if she thought the present had been a mean joke. And then, she cocked her head and possibly started thinking about the message another way.

Kyle couldn't really read the letters marked out in pen, but he could see enough to be reassured that most of the script, at least, was what he had dictated over the phone. Just three words. "NOT Max Evans."

It was something that he'd felt should be established up front.

----------

Max Evans still didn't know what was going to hit him.

He and Isabel were eating lunch in a little diner a few blocks away from the school, and she was still complaining about having had to go out in the rain. "I'm trying not to be a princess about the hair, but this isn't good. For one thing, my hair is naturally very dry and delicate, so wetting it in these kind of circumstances isn't good in the first place, and then they say that we're starting to get acid content in the rain here in Roswell, because of the sulfur fumes out of the refining plant, and since I have a high level of sodium traces in my hair, there's a chance that there could be a color reaction." She looked up at Max. "Do you have any idea how much attention it would attract at school if my hair turned green in the middle of Calculus today?"

Max sighed. "Sorry, Isabel. I... I just couldn't face all that noise and all those pairs of eyes in the cafeteria, and I had a craving for a roast beef dip sandwich with Tabasco on it." He nodded at her. "If you really wanted to stay back at the school, you could have told me so."

"Ehh." Isabel shrugged. "Well, maybe I'm protesting too much." She took a bite of a grilled chicken sandwich with a lot of greenery piled inside it, and then scooped up a forkful of garlic noodles. "So, any plans for Valentine's day? I know that you and Liz are still in a holding pattern, but... well, there's Shari Turner. Very pretty, and I think she's sweet on you."

"Yeah, too sweet to inflict the alien abyss on her," Max said somberly. "I dunno. Call this crazy, but I was actually wondering about spending some time with Tess around the holiday. Not - not as a romantic thing, just because she's probably feeling about as blue about it as I am. Anything I can do to get a friendship between us on a better footing, you know..."

"Ehh, I'd suggest that any time but Valentine's day would be better for that, actually," Isabel countered. "Tess is still... she'd probably misunderstand any particular attention you pay her now, and get the wrong idea. Could do more harm than good."

"Oh, yeah, I guess you're right." Max put that aside. "And what about you? I know that Alex has been playing it cool, and he keeps mentioning his Swedish nymph... what about, umm, Grant??"

"Oh, please, don't even," Isabel replied. "I want nothing more to do with Grant Sorenson, and I think it's pretty mutual. At least, in Valentine's-type respects." She lowered her voice slightly, even though the diner was almost empty. "I'm pretty sure he's figured out that I was the one who fingered him to Valenti over Laurie Dupree's kidnapping. And I'm not sorry that I did - even if we haven't been able to prove anything yet, I'm still sure that he was wrapped up in that somehow."

"Right," Max agreed. "By the way, Laurie is going to be transferred from police custody in the hospital to real protective confinement in a few days. We *still* need to figure out what her connection is to any real alien secrets - if it's really aliens who buried her out there in the woods, and why her Grandfather looked exactly like Michael."

"Yeah, I know," Isabel agreed. "Aside from keeping watch from a distance, though, I'm not sure what else we can do without incriminating ourselves... Jim Valenti can't protect us at all any more, remember. He's spent all the credibility he has."

"I know," Max agreed morosely.

Isabel considered a lock of her hair for a moment more. "You know, I don't think I should be with anyone this Valentine's Day. I need to concentrate on myself, on making sure that I'm ready for real love when I next get a fair chance at it."

"Huh?" Max looked up from his plate. "Which means what?

------------

When Kyle got home from school that day, he found his father in the middle of reorganizing some old toolboxes, their contents spread out across a strip of the living room carpet. "Oh, hey there," Jim Valenti said, looking up from the task and focusing his complete attention on his son. "How's it going?"

All of sudden, Kyle decided to put a relatively significant decision into the hands of the fates. He was wearing a cheap little digital watch, and had no idea what the time was beyond 'afternoonish.' If, when he looked at the face, the seconds digit was odd, he'd give Dad a fairly uninformative answer, put on his best impression of good humour, and head off to make plans alone. Otherwise...

It was 3:47 and twenty-six seconds.

"Well, umm, it's going alright I guess, except that I made an agreement with a friend to do something that I'm not sure I'm up for, and I can't decide the best way of going about it."

With an intrigued smile on his face, Mister Valenti stood up and headed over to the couch. "Anything that I can help out with?"

Kyle smiled much more faintly as he took the other end of the sofa. "Well, just maybe. Let's see. The deal, basically, is that Liz will take Max back if I... if I tell Tess how I really feel about her. For Valentine's day."

"Oh!" That seemed to leave the older Valenti speechless for a long moment. "I take it that the kind of feelings we're talking about... are at least minimally appropriate to the Valentine's Day occasion."

The way he phrased that finally made Kyle laugh and really smile. "Yeah, Dad. I... I guess I can't be sure that it's true love or anything, especially before I know if she feels the same way, but - well, I really like her a lot. Not just a passing case of the, umm - the lust-bunnies or anything. Definitely goes deeper than that."

"Hmm." Jim considered longer. "Well, leaving aside the matter of fatherly advice on sweeping a girl off her feet... you realize that the current situation would pose a few issues, right."

"Actually, yeah, I did wonder how you'd react to that side of it," Kyle admitted. "Would... would you make Tess move out, if we became a serious couple?"

"I... no, I don't think I'd turf her out on the street or anything," he said reassuringly, "and I'm not going to stand in the way of what you want to do. There'd be some new ground rules I guess... and I just might see if I could find Tess another home that she'd be satisfied with, so that the two of you aren't under the same roof, just because I'm not sure it'd be in either of your best interests when you're seventeen and in love."

"Another home?" Kyle asked. "Like where?"

"Well, this shouldn't be repeated to others or taken as anything more than an off the cuff thought, but Amy and Tess seemed to hit things off really well over the holidays. I realize that there's a long way between that and her inviting Tess to move in - especially since there's Maria's reaction to think about, but..."

"Yeah," Kyle agreed, though he couldn't help thinking that nobody seemed to have thought about his reaction when Tess had first come to their home. 'What are you doing here?' "I live here now.' Not that he was complaining any more, of course. In fact, it had been Tess threatening to leave the house last week that got Kyle to thinking about how fond he was of his 'favorite Martian.'

"Say, where is Tess anyway? I didn't think she'd have anything to keep her at school late today, and it's lousy weather for window-shopping. I'd have expected you to show up together... did you blow her off for worrying about Valentine's Day plans?"

"No, actually, she said she was going over to Michael's place," Kyle said. "Hmm, that's another option maybe, though like the other one it should stay between us for now. Tess could move into Michael's apartment, or into another place with him. Do you think she'd have to get emancipated, like he did?"

"Umm... not sure really. Let's not jump the gun on any of this." Kyle nodded, seeing the wisdom of that suggestion. "So, have you, umm...

"I had some secret-admirer flowers sent to Tess at school today, actually," Kyle volunteered. "Pink lilies."

"Hmm... well, that's not a bad way to start," Jim allowed, "but I'm not convinced that it's great. Anybody can send off enigmatic blooms - assuming they've got the money, and that isn't exactly either of our strong points. You need to save money for other stages of the game, too."

"Okay, so now what?"

"Hmm... well, you're close to her already, you guys spend a lot of time together anyway, so you could take the inside track. Just suggest certain things to do together, make them gradually more datelike, and see if she comments at any point. And stay on watch for any opening to give her a surprise kiss - but not TOO surprising, of course..."

"Hmm," Kyle said, smiling. "Yeah, that just might work. She'll probably be home from Michael's in time to grab dinner, since he never has much in the way of food. I could suggest going to a movie after."

"Only if you've both done your homework," Jim replied. Kyle groaned, but not too hard really. "And... do you think you can handle scrounging something up for supper for the two of you?"

"Dad!" Kyle exclaimed, shaking his head. "Are you just clearing out to make it more intimate for us, because I don't really think that's necessary..."

"No, actually..." Jim reached out for a black cowboy hat, tried it on, and considered his reflection in the hallway mirror carefully. "It's just occurred to me, actually, that you're not the only one with access to the inside track. Think I'll pay a visit to the DeLuca's and see if Amy's got room for one more at dinner."

Kyle smiled. "And if Maria should just happen to not be around?"

His father returned the grin. "So much the better."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey," Michael said, tearing off a bit of the crust of his pizza and considering it for a moment. "Well, it's like three days until Valentine's, and... umm, well, I was wondering if we were going to figure out what we were doing, or just play it by ear."

"Hmm." Maria thought about that as Michael popped the bit of saucy dough into his mouth. "Umm, I guess I was trying to relax and not push things. I mean - well, I know that I was a bit rough on you over the Christmas thing. It might be Isabel who's got the rep as the Christmas Nazi, but I was doing a pretty good job of following in her shoes. Just call me the Christmas Fascist, maybe."

"Umm... no, thanks," Michael managed to blurt out, shaking his head. Maria laughed lightly and lay back against Michael's couch. "Well, umm, taking things easy and not pushing makes sense to me, but - well, we could do something fun for the big day. Maybe not something traditionally romantic - umm, I mean, if that's okay with you."

"Yeah, actually... that is, as long as you're not thinking of going overboard on the counter-holiday theme."

"Which would be how far exactly? Going to far, I mean." Maria blinked in surprise at the question. "Sometimes it just helps to have an example of where the out of bounds line is."

"Hehehe, umm, okay, if you insist... well, I think this was on one of those slightly melodramatic and angsty Fox teen drama shows, but... getting tickets for a monster truck rally on the fourteenth... I think I wouldn't be wild about that."

"Hmm." Michael considered. "Fair enough. Umm, actually, come to think of it - oh, no, that's the day before Valentine's..."

"What is?"

"Oh, something that Kyle mentioned. There's a historical fair thing the day after tomorrow, out in the big park on Fifth Street. He didn't think much of it, but - well, it actually kind of sounded cool. Only if I can go as a pretty hard-core knight or something, of course, but still..."

"Oh, a Renaissance faire type thing?" Maria's eyes were starting to light up.

"Sort of, except not the Renaissance, I think." Michael's face scrunched up for a moment. "The high middle ages, whatever they are supposed to be." He sighed. "Hopefully that still means you can wear a pretty costume without getting anybody mad at us."

"Hrm... well, yeah, that has possibilities," Maria admitted. "Every girl likes to have a knight in shining armor around occasionally." Michael made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a gulp. "We could even make plans to go sortuv as a group... and then split up into pairs at some point. You and me, Kyle and Tess, Max and Liz... Alex and Isabel."

"Alex isn't available just at the moment... he's got Leanna," Michael pointed out, his eyes narrowing. "And Max and Liz haven't been talking that much in weeks."

"Alex and Leanna's thing isn't committed," Maria countered. "And as far as Max and Liz - well, you never know. I notice that you didn't comment on Kyle and Tess."

"Well, he told me that he liked her, sure... you did kinduv walk up in the middle of that talk this morning, remember?" Michael said. Maria paused a moment and then nodded. "Well, this faire stuff sounds cool, though we may need to pull a bit to get Kyle to come along. But it doesn't answer the question of what we're doing for the day itself." He considered. "I guess I was actually thinking of finding a carnival or amusement park type thing, but the day after the Middle Ages fair it seems like it might just be too much at once."

"Yeah," Maria agreed. "How about just dinner somewhere together? Doesn't have to be any place - maybe just the corner booth at the Crash. All I need for my Valentine's Day is you, spaceboy."

Michael smiled. "Yeah, that sounds great. And... and are we doing a present exchange thing??"

She shook her head and laughed. "Yes, and this time I will keep a more open mind. I... I really do feel bad about the whole Jetta bumper thing, you know? It... it was an incredibly thoughtful and sweet thing to do, exactly... well, the sort of thing that I really WANT more than traditional jewelry and perfume even if you could afford to give me that kind of thing on a regular basis, but... but it was just SO out of the box that I didn't quite manage to mentally label it a Christmas present in time, right?? Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Michael agreed. "Well, one thing's for sure - you're NEVER getting rid of those earrings. They make too good a story, now."

"Alright, you don't have to convince me too hard," Maria admitted. "But... well, I think this time I'll try to find you something cool and completely unexpected too. Sound like a deal?"

"Only if it comes with a little sugar on top," Michael said, moving close.

"Heh?" But by the time Michael was leaning in close to kiss her, Maria got the idea.

-----------

"Umm, sure, a movie sounds good I guess," Tess said to Kyle, opening up the cupboard above the sink and reaching for the top shelf. (Kyle couldn't help but notice the interesting changes that stretching like that made to her already attractive figure.) "But why do we have to go out to the cinema? There's like nothing at all good on, and probably a bunch of annoying college kids, and the freshman always throw little bits of popcorn and they end up in my HAIIII--"

All of a sudden, her questing fingers must have pulled at the wrong thing, because a tin canister fell off of the shelf and down towards her. Just an instant before it would have glanced off the side of her face, (and probably jarred its lid off,) Kyle grabbed it firmly in both of his hands. "Whoo! Nice one, football fingers. What's in there, anyway??"

"Umm..." Kyle righted the box and took a quick peek inside. "Looks like loose tea leaves or something."

"What are tea leaves doing up there??" Tess asked. "I'm the only one who ever drinks tea around here, and I only use the bags." She took the tin from Kyle, and sniffed at the contents. "Doesn't smell quite like tea."

"OHH - maybe it's the herbal stuff that Missus DeLuca swears by," Kyle said, smiling. "If she offered my Dad some - do you really think he would refuse?" Tess shrugged, seeming to accept that hypothesis without actually affirming it. "Well, come on - what were you going for anyway? I can put the herbal tea back and get it for you."

"Sure, rub it in, why don't you," Tess joked back. "You've not that much taller than me."

Kyle could only manage a slight smile. He wasn't a tall guy, and that fact had kept him benched on the basketball team nearly all winter. "Five inches, plus longer arms," he reminded her. And put the tin back up onto the shelf, as if that proved his point.

"Okay, well, the water's boiling now, so sure, grab the spaghettini while you're up there," Tess told him.

"What's that, short little pieces of spaghetti?"

"Not short, thin," Tess replied as he pulled down a few packages of dry supermarket pasta and started looking at the names. "It's midway in thickness between spaghetti and angel-hair or fettuccine - I think. Ah, that's it." Snatching on of the bags away without a further word, she hurried off towards the stove, grabbed a thick cord of the pasta sticks in one hand like she was going to tie up a bundle of sticks, and tossed it all into the saucepan, which was indeed bubbling away quite vigorously.

Kyle shrugged, put the rest of the pasta away, and stopped the microwave oven to see how hot the leftover chili-tomato sauce was getting. Finally he turned back to Tess and said, "Um, I think the tea tin interrupted you in the middle of something. Err... something to do with going out to a movie tonight, or staying in, or.... Ehh, that's as much as I can recall at this point."

"Oh, right, I was just up to the bit about the immature guys throwing popcorn into my hair," Tess agreed. "So, come on - there's still a few good DVDs in your collection that I haven't seen yet, and your Dad probably isn't going to be back until late if things are going well over at Amy's. How do you feel about staying in instead?"

Kyle was torn for a moment. How did staying in to see a movie rate as a 'coupley' thing compared with going out to the cinema? Both were things that he and Tess had already done together, just as friends. Finally he decided that he had to go with the flow, at least a little. It sounded like she really didn't want to go to the movie theater, so... so offer her one other choice for going out, and then leave it up to her, yeah. "I guess staying in and watching something here sounds good, yeah. Unless I can interest you in heading out on a mall crawl or something?"

"Hmm..." Tess cocked her head slightly. "No, I'll leave the crawl on a rain check, if that's okay. It does feel like a movie night."

"Cool, okay." The microwave beeped just then. "Okay, I think the sauce should be nice and hot by now. How's the spaghettini doing?"

"Hmm." Tess poked around in the saucepan with a metal slotted spoon, and after many tries managed to cut off part of a single noodle and capture it on a clean fork, and after letting her captive cool for about ten seconds she devoured it. "Could use another minute, I think, maybe two. One thing good about using the skinny stuff is that it doesn't take much cooking."

"Okay, I guess I'll start setting out plates and glasses, " Kyle volunteered.

-----------

Liz shut the apartment door a bit more forcefully than she'd intended to, hurried quietly into her room, and nearly tore the ponytail tie out of her hair. It had been a tough shift downstairs - one of the other waitresses, Amandi, (with an i at the end, as she always insisted on,) a West Roswell High graduate from the year before who had stayed in town and taken two jobs instead of going away to college, hadn't shown up, and nobody was answering her phone.

Liz, Maria, and Terri had had to stretch theirselves thin to cover the dinner crowd, and their hurried demeanor and longer than usual wait times had effectively made the customers more impatient and surly than usual, and Maria hadn't wanted to put off her own dinner date with Michael over at his place, so Liz had stayed past the end of shift, until Sharon started at seven and things calmed down a little...

Liz shook her head and breathed deeply several times, and a small measure of calm managed to seep into her chest and her head. She made sure that the door was closed, drew the curtains across her balcony window, then stripped the uniform coat off and collapsed on her bed in only underthings.

She thought about Max, and the pact that she'd made with Kyle that morning. He had the easier time of it, in a way - she'd seen him palling around with Tess, just as if nothing was unusual about this week. But Max had been - well, she wasn't quite ready to say that he was avoiding her, but aside from the three classes that they had together, and one close encounter in the hallway, she hadn't seen him all day. He hadn't been anywhere in the cafeteria at lunch - neither had Kyle, Tess, or Isabel, so she'd sat down with Alex, and Maria and Michael had come over to join them ten minutes later. And Liz had been hoping that Max would come by the cafe, especially since the rain had gone away in the mid-afternoon. Well, even if he had, she probably wouldn't have been able to pay him much attention beyond taking his order, so maybe it had been for the best - she wouldn't want him to start thinking that she was snubbing him too.

For several minutes she lay there, hardly moving, both feet and a bit of one arm sticking under the covers, (she usually made her bed a bit more neatly than that in the mornings, but her Father had driven her into school very early to meet with a guidance counselor about summer learning abroad programs... and Mister Witkii hadn't even shown up.) Soft sounds washed through the room - water dripping somewhere - probably rain had pooled on the roof of the Cafe or the next building over, and only draining away very slowly, one drop at a time, down to street level. There was a soft buzz from customers and other activity in the dining room downstairs, and a slightly louder purring occasionally from a car driving into or out of the parking lot. Somewhere, in the distance, a very optimistic songbird was tentatively calling.

Finally Liz felt recovered enough to get up again, wrap a comfy robe about her, and head over to her computer to check for any emails from her friends. Nothing from Maria, Alex had sent along yet more Sweden photos - and here she had thought he couldn't possibly have had any left that he hadn't already shown her. Maybe he didn't, and he'd just started repeating himself to see if she'd notice.

And there was one item from Kyle, buried amidst the prescription meds from Canada sales pitches - just labeled 'pact'. Curious, she opened it up.

"Hey. I don't have long until T will be getting home from Michael's, but I wanted to pass this along. The inside track - you've got it too, kind of, because you stayed friends with Max when all of that stuff happened last fall. Spend time with him, keep upping the ante and making things more 'couple-ey' without commenting on it. Oh, and if this doesn't work, well, it was really my Dad's idea, not mine. Gotta go see ya. KV"

Liz looked at the message, and couldn't help but feel as sense of frustration and despondency wash over her yet again. Maybe she'd had the inside track with Max before, but he clearly didn't want to spend time with her. Maybe it was the holiday, and memories of the Blind Date contest last year. She could hardly blame him. And... was it just possible that it was Tess who had the inside track with Max now? (Though Kyle also had the inside track with Tess too, as far as Liz could tell. The hunter and the hunted hunter... who would catch whom?)

As Liz sat there staring at the screen, her phone rang. "Yeah, hello?" she said automatically, and then realized that it wasn't the phone that she had picked up, but a remote control for the stereo CD player. For a second she looked around in frustration, and then clued in that the phone line was also connected up to the computer's sound card. With a few button clicks, she 'picked up' and a hiss came onto the speakers, followed by Maria's voice. "Hello? Are any of the Parker clan there??"

"Um, yeah," Liz said, fumbling the little microphone into position a few inches away from her face. "Can you hear me okay?"

"Um, yeah, not a great line but okay. How're you??"

"Umm... got the February blues a bit - or the Valentine's blues."

"Oh, that pact thing?"

"Yeah... or kind of, at least. Just seems like it'll be harder to even get the time of day from Max than I expected."

"Hmm... I know he's been a bit standoffish by habit, but you were kind of giving him the cold shoulder too," Liz pointed out. "Or at least a cool clammy shoulder. Have you tried actually calling him up or dropping by?"

"Well, no," Liz admitted. "Okay, point taken I guess." The comments about her shoulder temperature stung a bit, but maybe that was because they were truer than she'd wanted to think. "So, was that why you called? Just wanted to figure out what you could needle me about??"

"No, actually, I'm trying to round up a group to go to the Medieval faire thing, day after tomorrow, and was wondering if I could count on you to play dress up and come along."

"Hmm." Liz thought about that. "Yeah, actually, sounds alright. Might be a good distraction from the approach of Valentine's, worst comes to worst. When does it start?"

"I'm not sure, but we'll probably be heading over not long after classes are over," Maria said. "Michael and I, at least, I mean. And I don't think either of us have to work that afternoon."

"No, you're right, come to think of it... though that seems a little weird," Liz pointed out. "I hadn't realized there was this faire thing on that day, but... well hmm. I'll be there, anyway, unless there's an absolute crisis change of schedule."

"Sounds good enough," Maria replied. "Do you wanna talk more, or should I hang up and free the line for other calls?"

Liz laughed softly. "Yeah, that's fine. Are you still at Michael's?"

"Yep I am... and which one is fine?"

"Either, whichever you want... but I guess I was thinking more of hanging up. Bye, amiga."

"Right. I'll call you later, probably." And then the line clicked off. Liz closed up the phone conversation program, got up, and decided to change into a big floppy t-shirt and some baggy jeans. She was almost finished pulling the new outfit on when a knock sounded on her door.

"Who is it?"

"Just Dad." Liz smiled to herself. "Wanted to let you know that Amandi showed up about five minutes ago, unhurt."

"Ohh." Liz thought about that a moment. "Do you want me to hurt her for you?"

He actually chuckled at that. "Umm, thanks for the thought, but no. Umm, is it okay if I come in?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." Liz checked to make sure that everything was snugly on in the instant before the door swung open. "Apparently, she was out on an impromptu road trip with an old boyfriend. Lost track of the time"

"Oh, lovely," Liz said. "Umm... ohh, THERE'S the phone!" She reached out to take it off her dresser, right next to the stereo. "Umm, I was looking for it earlier, when Maria called."

"Hmm? How do you know it was Maria if you didn't find the phone?"

"Oh, I picked it up with the computer," she said, pointing. Dad nodded.

"Okay, well - just wanted to let you know about that. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just fine now, Dad," she said, and gave him a quick hug before he left. Then, not wanting to let her sense of balance and courage run out first, she dialed for Max's number.

"Umm, hello?"

"Hi Isabel, it's Liz. I was wanting to talk to Max - is he there?"

"Yeah, he's around. Just a minute." And sure enough, it was - well, more than forty seconds before she heard someone else picking up the phone. "Hey Liz... what's up?"

"Umm, nothing much, I had a bit of a rough shift but at least it's over." Liz took a deep breath. "Do, umm, do you want to do something together? I mean, we haven't hung out much as friends lately, what with all that's been going on and everything. We could..." Liz struggled to think of a friendly activity. "If you didn't give away your roller-skating gear we could go down to Sherman square and try to keep from falling on each other too much."

"Ohh." For a long moment Max didn't say any more. "Well, Liz, that... that doesn't sound too bad, but I was just... I kind of think that it might be easier on me if we put off the big Fri-enaissance until after the holiday. Sorry to have to say that, but..."

In a split instant a piece seemed to break off of Liz's heart... she could tell how much Max had to be hurting inside to say something like that to her. But she made a valiant attempt to stick to her guns. "Well... I'm sorry about that, but... but it would have been *easier* on me to keep my distance from you at Christmas, maybe, but I stepped up because I cared about you and you needed me! Now I think I'm the one who needs someone to lean on. Maybe I need your friendship now just as much as you needed me back then." And then all of a sudden, not knowing why (except maybe for a deeply buried urge to admit some of the truth to Max to offset that half-truth she'd just maybe'd at him,) Liz blurted out "Or maybe I... m-maybe I need more than a friend."

There was a long moment of silence from the other end of the line. "M-m... maybe you what??" Max asked her softly.

"Come on, you heard what I said Max," Liz whispered, hoping that she hadn't blown the whole deal.

"Alright, I did." Big breath from Max's end. "What you said was far from perfectly clear. Need more like what?" Liz couldn't answer immediately. "Are we talking about some torrid one night stand thing like you and..."

"Don't - don't even mention Kyle's name in this conversation," Liz said. "Please. And... and no. I need... no, I'm going to stop using that word, in the interests of full disclosure, and because it might be seen as putting pressure on you. I want... I just want to be with you again. To be your girlfriend again, your soul mate again, along with anything else in the galaxy that comes with that."

"I... I don't think you ever stopped being my soul mate," Max said, "no matter how star-crossed we were. That made it hurt more, but it didn't make what we were to each other any less true." He took a deep breath. "But - but I have to ask how sure you are about this, Liz. I... I'm willing to dive back in if you are, but I need to know that you're serious about it, that you won't back out again anytime soon, or take yourself out of my life for my own good."

Liz thought about that. What Max was asking about seemed fair, and... her heart was sure and true, but all of the things that made the situation complicated were still around, including most especially Tess. Kyle might have the inside track on Tess, but that wasn't the same as closing the deal (whatever deal they might eventually choose,) and if Liz took Max back without any reservations, that might get back to Tess too soon and just make Kyle's job harder. "I... I'm not absolutely sure," Liz admitted. "I... I wasn't supposed to tell you this much right now - that wasn't the plan. It just kind of came out." Max sighed an acknowledgement of that. "I... I think that maybe we shouldn't jump on things too quickly, maybe not even kiss tonight, especially if that would make things harder on you. But... but we should meet, and talk face to face. There are a lot of other things that I need to tell you."

"Really," Max said. "Well, okay, I'll come by and pick you up. We can go outside of town, maybe walk around a bit in the desert. Sound good?"

Liz thought about that. It would certainly afford them plenty of privacy - and the desert somehow reminded her of that long-ago trip to the radio tower, and how Max's kisses that night had seemed to nearly burst her soul out of her body. "Okay, that's a deal."

As she waited for Max to get there, Liz fought off the urge to change again and put on something prettier - that wasn't what the evening was supposed to be about for them, and she knew that this outfit was hardly dumpy enough to keep Max from seeing her as beautiful. (If there was anything she even owned that would be capable of such a feat, she wasn't sure offhand what it would be.) Instead, she got out some scrap paper and tried to outline the things she needed to talk to Max about - about his future self, and Kyle, and Tess, and the end of the world.

-----------

"That was great," Tess said as the credits rolled up on 'Star Patrol, Dawn of War.' She stretched briefly, and her fingers fell where they would rest against the outer edge of Kyle's thigh... something that she didn't seem to notice, though Kyle couldn't be sure. "I don't feel like going to bed yet, and it's only a few minutes after ten. What else can we watch?"

"Ehh, probably too late to start something new on the DVD," Kyle suggested. "We could try channel surfing."

"Right... so how do I switch back to the cable?" Tess asked, picking up the remote.

"I'll do it."

"No, come on, like I'm going to let you have the clicker," Tess teased him. She hit the '3' button and after a pause, the display switched from still-rolling credits to an early news broadcast. "Well, I guess that'll do." And off she went, running through the channels like... well, not quite a pro, but like someone who'd been doing it for more than ten years.

"Well, I get veto rights at least," Kyle said, as lightly as he could manage.

"Sure, whatever," Tess agreed. "You thirsty?"

"Hmm, actually yeah. You? I can get you something."

"Diet coke would be great, thanks." So Kyle got up, poured both of them glasses from the big plastic cola bottle in the fridge, and wandered idly back towards the living room. Just before he left the dining room, the light from behind him gave him a great view of Tess sitting on the far side of the couch. She was still wearing her clothes from school that day, but they happened to make up an outfit that Kyle found more than a little beguiling... black stretchy and clingy spandex tights, and a pale yellow sleeveless chemise top that fell *just* far enough to kind of qualify as a microdress. Kyle had to wrench his eyes from her legs when Tess cocked her head slightly - he was worried that she'd turn and ask him why he was just standing there.

"We've got a Friends rerun, some corny Norse mythology adventure show, or the ever-popular cable access antics of Stevie and Jeff," Tess reported. "At least, that's the short list. Whatcha think??"

Hmm. Kyle considered as he sat down and held one drink out for Tess to take. The Norse show sounded kinduv funny - and vaguely familiar, as if he'd happened upon it a few weeks ago. On the other hand, Tess might prefer watching 'Friends.' So... "Ehh, I'm not really in a cable access mood tonight, but either of the others sound good. Pick whichever you like."

"Hmmm." She punched in a number in the low sixties, and soon enough Monica and Phoebe were continuing an argument about birthday presents. Kyle didn't really mind the show being there, but he was finding it hard concentrating on the plot (such as there was) instead of on Tess.

"I'm a little surprised that Dad isn't home yet," Kyle mentioned once a commercial started.

"Ehh, just means that things with Maria's mom are going alright," Tess replied. "I think I'm glad. They're cute together."

"And you like Ms DeLuca, don't you?" Kyle asked. The things that his father had said earlier about possibly asking the DeLucas to let Tess move in came irresistibly to mind, but there was no way he could talk to her about that now... she'd wonder why she should have to move out, especially since he'd made that big speech last week about wanting her around in his life. And this was not the right moment to come right out and tell her that he liked her, Kyle could tell.

"Yeah, I do," Tess said, interrupting his train of thought. "...She's really cool and I think she gets me on some level, even if she... well, she doesn't know the big thing that there is to 'get' about me, at least I hope not," Tess agreed. "Wouldn't mind seeing more of her around here."

"I guess I wouldn't either," Kyle admitted. All of a sudden, what he had been thinking of earlier made him revisit the notion of trying to work the 'Inside track' in order to make a good impression on Tess, and belatedly he realized that he didn't seem to have gotten very far with that all night. Staying in and watching a DVD had sounded very cool beforehand, but when they got together in the living room, the friend zone seemed to box him in. (And that was a turn of phrase that had actually come from the show 'Friends', hadn't it? Suddenly Kyle felt like Joey and Ross were mocking him from the screen.)

"Umm, so Valentine's day is coming up," he said, not knowing quite why, and wondering if he was just digging himself deeper into the zone. "Got anybody in mind to be your special someone??"

"Hmm," Tess said, not seeming to mind him talking during the show. "Well, I suppose on some level there's Max of course... not that I'm as hung up on the way things are 'supposed' to be as I used to, but - well, I haven't entirely given up on him-and-me either, yet. But he hasn't been paying much attention to me lately when it doesn't have to do with alien weirdness or abductees, so I'm not exactly holding my breath or anything. Just have to wait and see how things turn out I guess." She flipped a bit of hair back over her shoulder, (Kyle's breath caught when he saw that,) and considered. "And there's Adam Donovan, in my Sociology exercise group. *Cute!* Maybe not the kind of guy I'd want to get into a long-term love thang with, but definitely he looks like passionate fling material. Wouldn't mind being his soft and squeezable Love day bear - or something slightly less creepy than that." She paused a moment. "What's wrong?"

Kyle hadn't realized that his face was one that was obviously showing distress, at that moment, but - well, obviously Tess knew him at least well enough to tell somehow. "Oh, it's nothing, really, just..."

"Do you have a PROBLEM with Adam or something?" Tess paused. "Don't think that he's good enough for your favorite alien babe, or something??"

"I... I don't really know Adam Donovan that well, and no I don't have a problem with him," Kyle muttered. "Certainly I don't have the idea that, umm, that I get to pass judgment on the guys that you're interested. I... I guess I'm just a little bummed out by the whole Valentine's thing because I don't have someone to be my own Valentine."

"Well, sheesh, then why did you bring it up for conversation in the first place!" Tess replied spiritedly. "I mean, really. Come on, let's just watch the show, okay?"

"Actually, I've had enough of the friends," Kyle grumbled. "How about we surf over to Odin's mountain, or whatever."

Tess glared at him. "Just take the clicker and watch whatever you want. I... I'm going to go take a bubble bath before bed." And she tossed the remote control at him and stormed out of the room. Kyle made a half-hearted attempt to get up and follow her, but gave up when he realized that he didn't have any idea what he'd say to her.

"That... that did not go well," he muttered almost silently to himself, belaboring the obvious.

------------

"Wow," Max muttered, turning around in the cool desert night to head back towards where he'd parked the Jeep. The sky was intensely dark above the two of them, with no moon out, and thick clouds blotting out the stars in wide patches. In the unclouded parts, though, they seemed to burn quite fiercely, the more determined to drive back the darkness for the fact that they were the only ones left to the task. With a start, looking up, Max realized that Aries was clearly visible above the western horizon, and he expected Venus to be in the same spot it had taken on last spring, completing the V shape that had seemingly caused so many problems for them. But no, that space in the sky was empty, and Max realized that it was much too late for Venus to be visible, even if it was at the evening-star extreme of its orbit at this moment. Instead, another unfamiliar prick of light was shining in the vicinity of the constellation, very close to...

Max realized that Liz was leaning into him, having followed without saying anything when he turned around, and he wrapped an arm comfortably around her shoulders as he tried to orient himself in the sky. Aries itself was a triangular wedge, like an extremely tall and steep mountain peak turned somewhat on its side, and there was another relatively bright star that wasn't really part of the same constellation but part of the V shape, extending the base of the 'mountain.' Venus had fit midway between that distant base point and the mountain peak, leaving two arms of roughly equal length, each with a star or planet about midway in between, leaving the open top of the V as the unbroken length of one mountain side from Aries' original formation. Now, however, a new star, or something like a star, was very close to the star of the mountain peak, near enough that it looked like the two might come together and become one. "Do... do you see that?" he said, pointing up to the twin formation. "One of those stars isn't... isn't usually there. Do you think it might be a... a new star that was just born?"

"New stars aren't born in anything less than thousands of years, Max," Liz pointed out. "Do... did you mean a nova? Those can flare up pretty quickly... and I suppose it's possible. On the other hand..." Liz broke off, orienting her own self amidst the whole sky. "That's in Aries."

"Yeah," Max muttered. He hadn't wanted her to realize that, but maybe it didn't matter. "So?"

"So, given that Aries is in the Zodiac, I suspect that it's a wanderer - a planet in our star system. That's more or less what the Zodiac is, right? The band of constellations across the sky that match the ecliptic path of planets in the solar system - including ours, which means that the sun travels through the Zodiac too. That's why the astronomers care about them, so that they can track mercury moving into Virgo and Saturn being opposite of Scorpio and all that."

"Right, I did know that," Max told her. "Twelve constellations in a rough path across the sky."

"Actually, thirteen," Liz said. Max blinked slightly. "Because the earth's orbit has wobbled some or something like that. The constellations don't match up with the co-ordinates that astrologers use anymore, and there's a thirteenth constellation that either they ignored or has crept into the path of the ecliptic, I'm not actually sure. Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer. But all of this is getting a bit wide of the point." She focused more intently on Max's double star. "Since it's so bright, and visible so late at night... we're probably down to two possible planets. And since I can't really find any noticeable reddish tint to either of those stars, I'm going to say that one of them is actually Jupiter, though I suppose Mars might not be red enough for me to identify it as such under these conditions."

"Jupiter," Max repeated softly. "By far the largest planet in our solar system. Named after the Roman king of the gods." He wasn't sure if he was able to think of this as a good sign or not - certainly it was something unexpected, which almost seemed like a mark in its favor, since all of the 'expected' signs he could have seen would have been telling him things that he didn't want to know. Almost he had a vague impression of himself and Liz as that star and Jupiter... coming so close, about to shine together as one perhaps. But that wasn't an interpretation he was entirely happy about, no matter how pleasant it seemed on the surface, because the star and the planet could not remain in this conjunction forever, and in any event their nearness was an optical illusion fostered by the lack of any distance cues for objects so faraway... even Jupiter was thousands of times nearer to them than the stars, and so it would be passing in front, not coming close. Just like he, himself, was in some ways so very far away from Liz's world...

"Don't think that way," Liz suddenly blurted out.

"How... how could you tell what I was thinking?" Max asked, honestly surprised.

"Because of the sudden tension in your arm, where you were holding me," Liz answered evenly. Max almost let her go, just in the surprise at Liz referring to tension that he hadn't been consciously aware of, but instead he just relaxed his grip slightly. "For our future, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, because we are mortal. Taking a few liberties with the line from 'Julius Caesar', but I don't think Ol' Will would mind especially, considering how many people misquote that line without even realizing that they get it wrong."

Max laughed softly. "Okay, so... you're still worried about that stuff that... that future Me told you, that if Tess found out about you and I getting back together in the wrong way, that she'd bug off and abandon Roswell forever, and then we're toast when we need her most?" Max shook his head at that unintended rhyme.

"Yeah, yeah I think it's something to be careful of at least."

"And... and you actually think that if Kyle manages to sweep Tess off her feet on Valentine's Day, that would make everything better?"

"I'm... I'm willing to take a chance on it, yes," Liz told him, and Max looked down towards her face. He would never have anticipated how much intensity her dark brown eyes hit him with, even though they were barely illuminated by the stars and some distant light on the ground. "Maybe... maybe it's foolish, and future me would tell me off for it if he were here, but - but he's not, and if there's one time of year that I feel entitled to risking everything for a chance at my own true love, then this has GOT to be it." He chuckled at the way that she'd put it. "I... I think that Tess is already a little less, umm, less focused on destiny and you than she was four months ago. And the way her relationship with Kyle has developed is a large part of that... as is her growing friendship with Michael and Isabel, and the times that the two of you have worked okay as a good team. Maybe if she realizes that she could be happy with a romantic destiny that's not you, she can just leave well enough alone." She sighed. "And if she *does* run, you go catch her, and guilt-trip her into coming back, using what I've told you about the end of the world. I don't think that the girl who wanted a Christmas dinner with her new family so bad has a hard enough heart to shrug THAT off."

Max chuckled. "Okay, so... well, once we get back to the car, what do we do now?"

"Umm, you take me home," Liz replied almost immediately. "My parents are probably worried about me being out this late - and they'd FLIP if they found out that I was in the desert with you, again."

Max allowed that. "What about tomorrow, then? I... I wish I could shout my love for you from the school rooftop, but I'm willing to hold back on that. We can do *something* together, though - something secret, or something so innocuous and harmless that Tess wouldn't suspect anything from it."

Liz giggled. "Pick me up again at ten to seven in the morning. We'll figure it out." Max groaned slightly at the thought of how little sleep that would afford him. "Of course, if you'd rather NOT..."

"How... how could I ever refuse you," Max said, pulling Liz into a two-armed embrace. "But... but one thing before we go around that last corner, and see the car waiting for us." Liz waited silently, and he realized that she was expecting him to name that 'one thing' before she replied. "I... I don't want tonight to end without kissing you."

"Hmm." Liz considered. "Well, what if we go around the corner and the car ISN'T waiting for us?"

Max blinked at the unexpected question. "Umm... then we're in a lot of trouble, and we'll probably have to hike back out to the main road and... and see if we can hitch a lift back into town. Which, umm, would mean spending a lot more time together, but parents DEFINITELY being angry with us. Do you want to go and check on the Jeep *first*??"

"Sure, yeah," Liz giggled, and Max realized that she'd mostly been teasing him. "Then one kiss, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask that it be a quick one."

"Okay," Max agreed, and took her hand in his, running ahead to where they could both see the Jeep, parked along the shoulder of a seldom-used back road. There was a nearly straight rock wall near them, seven and a half feet high, so Max swept the girl he loved up against that surface and drank deeply from the rich liquor of her lips.

-----------

Tess woke up, stretched, and blinked as memory of a particular dream hit her. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it... but it seemed to be about Kyle and... a girl. A blonde girl, but she couldn't see her face, or even make out very much else clearly... what shade the hair had been, or how it had been worn, for instance. Or the height of the girl or much about her figure, aside from the fact that she'd had healthy curves. (Well, big surprise, if it was about Kyle.) And why was she dreaming about a girl for Kyle, for cripes' sake? How about dreaming about a guy for her??

The dream remained very much on her mind as she showered, took care of a few other grooming necessities, and dressed, picking a calf-length purple skirt and a long-sleeved gray sweater out from the dresser. When she went out to the other side of the house, Kyle was already clean and dressed for school too. (Had he been in the bathroom before she had? No, Tess didn't think so, which implied that he must have gotten ready considerably quicker.) "Hey, umm... I, uhh, I wanted to apologize for how we ended things last night. I... I didn't mean to upset you, if I was acting a little sullen it wasn't intentional, and I didn't realize that you could pick up on it. I... I guess I was just curious if you had any plans for the holiday, or if we could hang around together, and umm... be miserable together."

Tess smiled as she looked at him, standing there looking a little awkward. "That... that's okay, I guess I was acting more than a little touchy about the whole thing, maybe because for all of my plans, they don't really amount to much. I'd love to be your... umm, your misery company. That is, if you really need any."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kyle asked, blinking in surprise. His face looked like he wasn't sure if he should be upset that she was casting doubts on what he'd said, or pleased that whatever she was getting at could be good news for him.

"Oh, nothing in particular," Tess said in a low whisper. "Just... I have a notion that you might have some more good luck with a special lady this Valentine's day than you expect."

"Well, umm... that's - that's really good I guess," Kyle said, not sounding at all certain. "Do you, umm, want to hit the Crashdown for breakfast? Or Coughey's shoppe??"

"Umm, actually, no, I, umm, I kinduv need to eat here," Tess said. Kyle looked at her as if he wasn't sure what that meant.

"If it's money, umm, I can buy for b..."

"No. Just... I need to think something over by myself while I eat, and then hit the computer before we leave for school," she told him.

"Okay... and what's this something?"

"Umm, school stuff."

"What class?"

"Just, urrgh," Tess growled. "Sociology. Happy now?"

"Umm... I guess so." Kyle's face fell, as if he knew that he had messed up again somewhere, but wasn't quite sure how. Tess smiled reassuringly at him and headed off to fetch cereal and milk.

Even though she'd aroused Kyle's attention by insisting on her own breakfast plans, (and he'd interpreted 'by herself' as meaning that he couldn't even join Tess at the dining room table apparently,) Tess found that the meal was helpful in clarifying her own thoughts. Once everything was eaten and her bowl was rinsed out and sitting in the sink, full of cold water, Tess retreated to the study, sat at the computer, but picked up the telephone handset and dialed instead of using the keyboard. "Yeah, hi there," she said after getting an answering hello. "I... this might sound weird, but I was wondering it you'd let me fix you up on a Valentine's Day date."

"Me?? With who?"

"Kyle." A pause. "I... I'm not sure why, but he's been kind of moody with the holiday coming up, and I think it's because he has a crush on you and isn't sure how to make the first move himself. Of course, you're very different, and things may not go anywhere, but I thought I'd see if I could set up a chance for him."

"Well, umm... it's not like I really have any better plans, and he's not as bad as I used to think he was. Set up a place and time, and if he'll show up then I will too."

"All right... and thanks for doing this for me, Isabel," Tess said. "See you in class."

And with that, they both hung up their telephones.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

Maria knocked on Liz's balcony window at six twenty-five the next morning.

Liz turned over, sat up on the window side of her bed, and blinked at the face she saw peering in through the narrow space where the curtains hadn't been pulled all the way... or, no, Liz had pulled them back just a bit right before she went to bed, to see if she could catch a glimpse of the stars. Groaning with sleepiness, she stood up and hurried over to open up the window. "Maria, what are you *doing* here? Max is going to be picking me up in less than half an hour, and I have to shower and change first."

"I'm panicking - that's what I'm doing," Maria declared. "And, as an aside, I think that Max would really like that outfit if you DIDN'T change out of it, though a morning shower is probably still apropos."

Liz quickly looked down at her pajamas - blue flannel shorts that stretched a little more than halfway down her thighs, and a pale orange cropped t-shirt with a picture of 'Babs Bunny' from the Tiny Toons on the front of it, (and baring more belly than she had realized before looking closely.) "Yeah, well maybe Max would like it, but I need to be wearing something a LITTLE more appropriate for school, too."

"Hmm, okay," Maria admitted. "Classes were never Babs' strong suit. So, since you're in a hurry, I'll just unload on you quickly, and then..."

"Hey!" Liz exclaimed, starting to feel a little peeved. "Barbara was a very bright and hard-working rabbit, with good study habits. I'd say that she was better at class work than most of her friends at Acme U..."

"Come ON, Liz!" Maria exclaimed. "Focus? Not much time, and other priorities to worry about?"

"Oh, yeah," Liz agreed with a sigh, and started to gather anything she thought she'd need for her shower. "Go ahead and unload - I'm listening."

"I... I need to find Michael's Jetta bumper, and I have no idea where to look."

"His... his Jetta Bumper?" Liz repeated. "Oh, as in the one he gave you for Christmas? Umm... isn't it still fastened securely to the front of the Jetta?"

"Not literally that bumper," Maria corrected. "And actually, it was the back bumper."

"Oh, right."

"I mean, I need to find something as cool, as unexpected, and as out-of-the-box to give him for Valentine's Day as that, and I don't have any ideas."

"Oh, boy," Liz breathed. "This is what you guys are doing for the big day??"

"Yeah, well, something," Maria qualified. "And it was my idea, except that when I said it I didn't think it would be this hard."

"Yeah, this isn't something that we can solve right away," Liz confirmed, picking out some clothes. "I'll think about it while I shower, and tell you if anything occurs to me."

Maria nodded tentatively, and Liz made her exit on that.

----------

When Max pulled into the Crashdown parking lot, he wasn't too surprised to see Liz already coming out the side door of the building. The fact that Maria was with her was a bit more of a shocker.

"Hi, good morning Liz," he said, reaching out his hand for a shake that seemed far too stuffy to favor the love of his life with. "And hi Maria, too."

Liz shook her head. "Oh, for crying out loud Max, you can kiss me in front of Maria. She's not going to blab about it."

Maria blinked. "I'm not??" Liz shot her a very angry glare for about a second. "Umm, well, of course not if you ask me not to, but I thought that discretion still had to be requested and asked for. It's happy news, after all, especially in this season! What's wrong with telling people?"

"Well, umm, we just don't want to let one particular person find out too soon," Liz muttered as Max gave her a more enthusiastic hug, but no kiss yet, since she was talking. "Especially not when it could wreck Kyle's plans."

"Oh, right," Maria Now Max went for the kiss. "Does Maria, umm, know about what you told me last night?" he asked once they were done.

"Actually, I'm going to jet right now," Maria said, waving at where her car was parked. "Congratulation guys, and see you in class." Maria had first period with Liz but not Max, second period with Max but not Liz, and both together for fourth... as well as half of the afternoon.

"Umm, to answer your question," Liz said, putting her arm around Max's waist as they both walked towards the Jeep, while Maria hurried ahead and departed. "Maria has, umm, known since Thanksgiving. She asked me about the Kyle thing while you were away in New York, said that it had been the rumor of the week at school, and didn't believe me when I tried to tell her it was all true. Said that it wasn't like me. So a day or so later I cracked and summoned her outside in the middle of the night to confess the truth." Liz shook her head. "She seemed oddly relieved that my first time hadn't been an awkward one night stand... not that I'd have wanted it to be I guess."

"Umm, okay," Max said, getting behind the wheel, thinking of Thanksgiving, when he'd been in New York. With Tess, attending the Summit, which had been the biggest bonding experience the two of them had been through really. But even then, he'd been sure that her hopes of true love between them were misplaced...

"Okay, umm... where do we go now? Any ideas??"

"Hmm... breakfast somewhere?" Liz prompted. "I'd say Coughey's, except that I think Kyle and Tess sometimes hit it on a school day morning. Any alternatives popping to mind?"

Max thought about that. Probably Liz didn't want to have breakfast at the Crash, or she'd have said so. He tried to think of someplace that Tess would never ever go, that would offer a unique and special breakfast for this kind of occasion. "Ooh... I, I know just the place, but you'll kinduv have to trust me, okay?"

"Well, sure," Liz replied. But when he had pulled up at Lorenzo's, she did a double take. "A pizza place for breakfast? Really??"

"Yeah." Max pointed to a small sign in the window. Liz completely broke out laughing as she read it.

"Okay, yes, I guess that'll do." She rubbed his arm and then jumped down out of her seat. "Come on."

----------

"What's the special, Debby?" Max asked once a waitress (with a beehive of platinum blonde hair, in her late thirties,) came up to their table.

"Sun-dried tomato pie, with green peppers and onions."

Max made a face, and Liz wasn't wild about the idea. "Umm, just get us, umm... three slices each, pepperoni and salami. With an orange juice - and pink grapefruit." Liz smiled, grateful that he still remembered her breakfast beverage of choice, even though it had been a long time since they'd shared this part of their day with each other.

The waitress nodded, made a few quick marks on her pad, (Liz was interested in how it was laid out, but couldn't really see anything helpful and didn't feel comfortable asking for a closer peek,) and moved away. Liz turned to Max. "Pepperoni *and* Salami? Isn't pepperoni a kind of salami? And by far the most popular kind of salami used in garnishing pizzas, of course."

"Yeah, I'm not sure if it really makes logical sense," Max said, "but it really tastes good with the two of them together... at least, I like it a lot, and I hope that you will too." He looked around the restaurant. "Nobody else from school here, as far as I can tell."

"Hmm." Liz looked around. Sure enough, even though the dining room was fairly full, there was nobody who looked familiar from West Roswell, and only one guy eating alone who she would consider to be high school-aged. The rest were mostly in the twenty-something bracket, maybe enrollees of the local junior college, ENMU, or townies grabbing breakfast before whatever their own McJobs were. It wasn't too long that she had to consider the fellow diners though, because their drinks arrived very soon, and then, about two minutes later, the pizza - mid-sized wedge slices on plain porcelain plates, and definitely not fresh out of the oven. Liz touched the cheese, and found it was only slightly cool to the touch - not quite as cold as she'd expect it to be coming out of her fridge at home. But when she took a big bite out of the side, including just a bit of crust, it certainly tasted delicious. Max grinned when he saw the look on her face.

"I have to say, as someone who's worked in the food business, it's clear that a lot of thought and preparation has gone into this," Liz was telling Max a slice and a half (each) later. "The temperature is one thing. It'd be easy to have them at fridge temperature, but I think it's definitely better this way - just a bit warmer, but still cooler than room temp. And then there's the pizza itself. The bottom crust is thin but not too thin, the outer crust is kind of ridgey, which lets the sauce spread right out to touch it without spilling over. The cheese is something just slightly different from your regular mozzarella cheese - maybe there's a mix of English cheddar in there, or something, I'm not quite sure." She sighed happily.

"Bottom line, you can take just about anybody's pizza, throw it in a fridge overnight and have decent cold pizza for breakfast," Liz decided. "But this is clearly a cut above. Pizza that's been baked from the first place to be cold pizza for breakfast. I approve."

"Good I guess," Max said, and took a bite of his own. "So, umm... what now? We... I feel as if I'd like to talk about something else, something that we missed or haven't had a chance to discuss lately... or make plans for later, after school. But I'm not sure which."

"Hmmm." Liz thought about that. "Well, let's see. I've been pretty busy lately, what with school, work, Alex just getting back from his trip, and... ohh. Did, umm, did you hear that Sean DeLuca has been, umm, kind of hanging around me??"

"Well, I've *seen* him," Max remarked, and Liz looked up, surprised by the bitter quality in his voice.

"You... you have nothing really to worry about, you realize that," she said, and Max smiled. "I... well, I won't deny that there was a part of me that wasn't slightly flattered, especially since things between us seemed so bad. But... but I don't really like him, and... well, ugh." Liz sighed. "I... I can't really tell him that you and I are back together again, can I? Or better yet, would be to let YOU make the message clear." Liz giggled. "Sean's just the kind of guy who might spread the news around if he realizes that we don't want someone in particular to know. Just for spite."

"Hmmm." Max considered that. "Well, what if I made it look like you hadn't taken me back, but I was jealous of the attention that he was paying you and chose to take the situation up with him anyway??" Max thought about that. "What would Tess think about that, do you suppose?"

"Hmm." Liz considered. "Well, disappointed, I guess, but not devastated. It... it might actually help, to cushion the realization when she does actually find out, and to make her more vulnerable to Kyle's charms." She giggled. "Of course, she might not even find out, but it could be fun even so. What... what would you do to Sean? I... I can't see you fighting him straight out, or using your powers. Especially considering what Kyle's friends did, way back one... you're not the kind of guy to pass a grudge like that forward."

"What grudge?" Max chuckled. "No. But... well, I'm sure if I can think about it, I can find some pretty nasty tricks to play on a guy like that... and if I have to use my unique talents, there's no reason he should have to know about them." Liz giggled. "Maybe, umm, you should give him one fair chance. Tell him that you're not interested in his 'attentions' and you want a complete moratorium on all sorts of flirting, sexual joking, questionable compliments, or anything else he's doing that you consider at all annoying. He probably won't be able to resist completely, but it makes my conscience just a little bit clearer."

"Hmm... okay, yeah, I guess I could do that," Liz agreed. "So, umm... that little conversational path took us slightly off course, so let me see... today, after school. Do... do you think that maybe we could take off for the woods together?" She thought. "It's probably going to be too cold yet to go swimming under the waterfall or something like that, but the ravine will still be reasonably pretty... spring coming early this far South and all that. Whatcha think?"

"Hmmm." Max considered. "I... I have a late shift at the center today I think. Will have to be back in town by seven - but that gives us a few hours."

"Great," Liz decided. "Okay, we'll take off right after last class... both of us are dressed pretty warm I think, so that's okay." Bite. "But... umm, well, you should probably make sure that Tess doesn't see us together." She sighed. "Do... do you hate me for making such a big deal about the sneaking around thing?"

"No, actually, in a weird way it makes it more romantic or something," Max said with a big wide grin, and Liz shook her head.

"Okay, so... what have you been up to since Christmas?" Liz asked him.

"Well, let's see... there was the bit where my darling sister recruited me and Jim Valenti to find a buried kidnapped girl that she was having nightmares about..." Max whispered carefully.

----------

Michael walked up the road that led towards the high school, trying to figure out whose help he should get with Maria's present.

His first instinct was, oddly enough, to go to Isabel. (After all, she'd helped him get through Christmas pretty much unscathed.) But then, well, just being around Isabel while she was getting excited about almost any kind of holiday was excruciatingly annoying to Michael, and for something like Valentine's, a big romantic deal, it would probably be even worse. Then again, there was no telling if she'd be excitable over Valentine's this year until it happened - given that she wasn't seeing anybody, was still a bit upset about how the whole Laurie thing had turned out and costing Valenti his job, and given that Alex was apparently gushing about his Swedish new flame to anyone who would give him much of an opening. Last year, Isabel had been pretty down in the dumps over Valentine's, and that was how Michael had managed to talk her into going to leave a signal for Nasedo that night. The year before, she'd been really hyper and nervous - it was the first time she'd had a big night on a 'special occasion' with a guy - Malamute Johners from the football team, and then he went and dumped her the day after Valentines, and the day after that, rumors had started to circulate about a number of practically awkward things that Isabel had supposedly done to sexually service him in the back of his secondhand Beemer. (Michael had managed to get his own payback on Johners, but that was another long story.)

Also, Maria had said that she really didn't want him to give her anything traditional, girly, or stereotypically romantic - Isabel's strong suits when it came to the gift giving game, Michael thought, and certainly the avenue that she'd pursued when she got him the pearl earrings to give to her. So... so somebody else. Maybe Max, if Michael could manage to find him... Max was okay with the generally romantic stuff, but not quite as much of a girly traditionalist about it, so he might have some ideas. And then, well, Michael supposed there was...

"Whitman?" The laws of probability and coincidence in Roswell had been permanently warped by too much alien activity, Michael sometimes thought. There was no other way to explain the way little synchronicities like this popped up so often. Just before Michael had been about to think Alex's name, who should walk into view up at the next corner. "How - how's it going, man?" Michael called, breaking into a bit of a run, as Alex slowed and looked around for where the voice was coming from. "And - and how's Leanna? Heard from her since, umm... since whenever we last talked?"

"Hi, Michael," Alex said, very nearly stopping so that Michael could finish catching up, and then scrambling to pick up his lost walking speed because Michael didn't slow down much. "Yeah, uhh... I got a couple emails from her last night, she's doing great." Pause. "And how's Maria?"

"Pretty great, though I haven't met up with her this morning," Michael said. "Possibly she's avoiding me for the same reason that I'm avoiding her - so that we can both obsess over what valentine's gifts to give each other in relative privacy and not be tempted to beg the other person for just a bit of a hint."

Alex laughed out loud. "Hmm... did she give you a budget again? Well, I guess that you'd kind of have a life circumstances budget even if she didn't, we all do in a way, but, umm..."

"It's not just the money thing this time, man," Michael said. "Basically, she wants me to get her something out of the box again."

"Out of which box??"

"The, umm... whatever box it is that usually confines typical and traditional thinking," Michael said, letting the question cross over his own face. "Well, never mind. Something unexpected, like the bumper - except even better."

"Is that last part what Maria was saying, or just your own high hopes?" Alex asked. Michael shrugged. "Well, let's see... I guess if you want to get her a nontraditional gift that she'd really like... it makes sense to start with the things that Maria really loves." Pause. "Aside from yourself."

"Well, umm... thanks, if you were serious about that and not just trying to head me off from deciding that as an ego thing," Michael said, and Alex nodded, smiling. "Umm... aside from her friends and her mom - huh. She likes working at the cafe, but doesn't LOVE it, and it'd be hard to build a present around anyway. Actually, she doesn't even like it some days lately. Clothes, or... oh, of course. Music."

Alex grinned. "Yeah, that seems like a good place to start."

"Okay, so music, but what about music? Buying some really good indie albums for her? Trying to get a song custom-recorded at that make your own CD place in the mall without even realizing why she's singing it??"

"Hmm... well, maybe, but I dunno," Alex admitted uncertainly.

"OH!" Michael actually reached out and grabbed Alex's arm in his excitement. "This... this might sound like going too far, but how about buying her an instrument or something?"

"Hmm." Alex had to think about that for a while. "Maybe, just maybe. Of course, learning to play an instrument is a daunting challenge even for an enthusiastic musician, and... well, I still remember when her Mom convinced her to take flute lessons. Wasn't pretty." Michael's face fell a little bit. "On the other hand - well, it's an incredibly sweet gesture, and I think Maria would really like the thought of it - just that you're encouraging her in music in so concrete a way. I... I'm not going to make you any promises or accept any responsibility for the idea... but it's worth a shot and I actually hope that you go through with it."

"Hmm." Michael tried to sort out that more than slightly ambivalent response. "Well, okay, I'll think about it, at least." And that let him relax a little bit, in an odd way. Now, instead of having to think of an idea, Michael had an idea, and just had to figure out if he was actually going to go through with it or not. (Of course, if he DIDN'T have the nerve to go with this possibility, he would be back at square one, having to think of something new. Or maybe at square one and one-half, if he kept within the music category.) "Okay, but *if* I was going to, do you have any ideas for what kind of instrument? Apparently not a flute, but... I do know that she already has some kind of an old guitar in her room..."

"Actually, that's mine," Alex pointed out with a little bit of an edge to his voice. "She keeps telling me that she just needs it a few more days before she can give it back." He thought about that. "I'd appreciate it if you could give her an acoustic of her own so she can stop hogging mine, but unfortunately - no, I don't think that'd go over so well."

"Mmm." Michael thought about something like that... if he'd borrowed something of Max's for a long time, and Isabel got him the same sort of thing as a birthday present so that he would finally give Max's back - yeah, even though it would have been his own fault for extending the loan so much, it wouldn't feel very special or cool that way. "Okay, not an acoustic guitar. Should I stay away from guitars altogether??"

"Well, let's see... " Alex sighed. "Maria's mom would probably like you even less if you got her an electric guitar and an amp, so probably that's on the 'better not' list. I mean, you do pretty much want to mend the bridges with her instead of burning them, right??"

"Yeah, that's a good point," Michael admitted.

"No way are you getting her a bass, because that's my thing," Alex replied. "And... well, unfortunately a rhythm guitar is so un-sexy that it probably doesn't make a good Valentine's present. So, no, I guess no guitars."

"Hmm." Michael thought about that. "If the bass guitar is so thing, why are you so upset that she's got the acoustic?"

"It's a long story."

"Okay." He shrugged. "So what else?"

"Umm, I'm not sure," Alex admitted. "Brass and reed woodwinds are both tricky, in similar but slightly different ways."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Well, they both require a lot of practice to learn how to play," Alex explained as they drew close to the school. "Very specific and difficult ways of using the mouth muscles. And, well, given that Maria would probably want to learn how to play whatever you give her pretty quickly, she might feel so much frustration and impatience that it would drown out whatever pleasure she felt from the cool gift."

"Yeah, that, umm, that does sound like her," Michael admitted. "On the other hand, well, she does have very talented lips, I can swear to that much." There was a longish pause. "I... I probably shouldn't have told you that, should I?"

"Really no, and please let's just move on," Alex admitted. "So, well, I guess that leaves..."

"Oh, boy, zip it," Michael muttered. Alex looked up in surprise and realized that Maria was crossing the intersection up ahead, coming straight towards both of them.

-----------

"Hello?" Jim Valenti said as he picked up the phone.

"Hi, darling, it's me," the reply quickly came. "Umm, Amy."

"Yeah, I recognized your voice."

"Very glad of that." She sighed softly. "I... I can't believe that I'm letting myself get like this... been up since five just thinking about you, and wondering how early would be too early to pick up the phone." There was a feminine giggle. "I guess this is as long as my willpower managed to last."

"Well, I guess the timing's pretty good," Jim admitted, sitting down on the couch and pushing a blanket out of the way. "Kyle and Tess left for school about five minutes ago. I assume that Maria isn't around either?"

"No, actually, she left really early," Amy told him. "Said she was going over to Liz's before school. I think that there might be something about Valentine's Day and Michael that she wanted advice on. I... I thought about asking more, but didn't get up the nerve."

"Maybe you should talk with her this afternoon," Jim admitted. "But - well, I'm glad that I'm on your mind too. I... I can't seem to forget that one kiss that you gave me before I got into my car."

"Oh, no, Jim," Amy countered. "That wasn't a kiss that I just gave you. That was a kiss that we shared."

"Hmm... correction noted." Jim chuckled himself. "So, well, do you have anything that you badly need to do this morning? I... I'm something at loose ends lately, as you might remember, and I can't seem to think of any better use I could put the time to than spending it with you, getting re-acquainted."

"Oh!" Amy exclaimed. "That, well, that is very sweet of you to say, but I'm afraid that you can't tempt me to play hooky. Erm, well, I suppose that you probably could, in a practical sense, but you're absolutely not allowed to and I would hold it against you for a long time, because I'm the boss and there is simply nobody else who can watch the store this morning, and for some strange reason Valentine's is a busy season in the alien memorabilia business. We, umm, we just got a batch of plastic pink heart refrigerator magnets with green men and lines from Klingon love poems on them... it doesn't really make sense I know, but they're selling like hotcakes, and I'm trying to put every quarter that I can save up towards my dear daughter's college fund, so..."

"I... I understand, you have to work," Jim said, even though a small part of him was telling him that he should have stayed silent and found out just how much longer she could have rambled and ranted before running out of steam. "Umm, this might sound a bit odd, but do you mind if I drop by the place?? I... I'll do my very best not to, umm, to distract you away from what you're doing, I just... well, I don't want to wait to see you."

"Oh boy!" Amy breathed. There was a short pause. "Okay, well, I should be there by eight thirty, and come by anytime. Martin will be by to relieve me in the early afternoon, so maybe we could grab a bite to eat then."

"Sounds, umm, good," Jim decided. He had been considering using the term 'great', but thought it might sound overkillish. "You had to do a gut check there, didn't you?"

"What?" Just before Jim decided what to say next, Amy spoke again. "Well, yeah, I guess I did. How could you tell?"

"I... I guess I've recognized the sound that you make when you're breathing into your belly that way," he said. Clearly this revelation shocked Amy speechless. "Well, you probably have a lot of things to do to get ready to go," he said, talking over the silence. "I... I'll see you soon."

"Can't - can't wait."

Jim smiled to himself and hung up the phone.

-----------

"Are... are you okay?" Kyle blurted out as he and Tess made their way through the busy school halls.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine I think. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm not sure, it's something about your face, or the way you were acting in class," Kyle mumbled. "Like something's still bugging you."

"Bugging me? No, not a thing," Tess insisted. "Really." A few steps later and they came up to the student council charity fundraiser table. "Oh, hi Cheryl. What exactly is it that you guys are selling now??"

"Umm, alien love crystals," Cheryl Walker managed to say with a straight face, picking one up - a necklace with a gaudy but oddly brilliant red stone in it. "Do you want one to give a special guy? We've got relatively manly rings, or plain settings to carry around instead of wear."

"Umm, no, really don't have any guy to give to." Tess sighed. "But Kyle, you should get one."

"Hmm, alright yeah," Kyle said, and tossed over more bills than he'd expected for a chain bracelet stone. "They look like the red kryptonite thingies in the new Teen Superman show." Cheryl shrugged.

"Now, keep that safe," Tess said to him. "I think that you're going to have a chance to give it to somebody special on Valentine's Day."

"Umm... all right," Kyle said, not quite sure how to take that. "I hope so too."

"Don't worry about hoping," she said smugly, and giggled to herself.

"Um, okay," Kyle muttered, and they continued along. Soon, Tess recognized someone again, and Kyle couldn't quite keep his eyes from rolling, though he did manage to stifle the groan.

"Max! Hey!!"

"Oh, hi there," Max said a little guardedly, as though he wasn't sure that Tess wouldn't start -- well, as if he wasn't quite sure what she might start doing if given half a chance. "How's it going Kyle?"

"Umm, not bad man."

"Got any big plans for Valentines' day?" Tess said, as if she was trying to be smooth about it, but it didn't really seem to come off as smooth. (Maybe everyone there just knew better.) "Oh, you've got one of the love crystals too."

"What, this?" Max said, and brought up the little necklace with a peach-colored stone on it as if he had forgotten that it had been hanging from his fingers, which had also been wrapped around the end of some schoolbooks. "Yeah, uhh, I - I thought that my mom might get a kick out of it. Really lame I know, but - well, there you have it."

"Hmm." Tess looked at the necklace with a girl's critical eye. "Yeah, that should go with her skin tone okay." When she said it that way, Kyle suddenly realized that Max's mom wasn't the only lady in his life with the right skin tone for peach - Liz did too, and... and Tess probably knew that much as well. Was Liz already Max's valentine (or the other way around?) Did Tess guess so? Maybe Kyle would have to step up his game, except that he couldn't really figure out if she meant what he thought she meant about having a chance with someone special on Valentine's. Maybe she was trying to tell him that he had to wait until the day itself.

"And as far as Valentine's plans," Max continued, "not really. Err - Michael and Maria are trying to get the whole gang together to go to this medieval faire thing tomorrow actually, and it sounds like fun. You should both come. But other than that - err, not really. And... well, what about you guys? Anything in mind??"

"Well, not really," Tess mumbled, blushing slightly. "Guess I'm joining the club of the lame."

"Who do you pay your dues to when you join?" Kyle chimed in, just because it seemed like the thing to do... everybody was pretending like there wasn't huge intrigue about who might be hooking up with whom by pretending that they all had absolutely no prospects whatsoever.

"Ehh, we haven't had club elections yet I think," Max muttered. "Well, I gotta head off here." He nodded towards the stairs in the middle of the wing they were walking down. "See yas both!!"

Tess waved slightly, and Kyle called "Bye" as Evans left. Tess didn't say anything as she headed off to their next class, so Kyle just shrugged silently as he followed her. Medieval Faire, hmm. He wondered if he could actually get a decently cool costume ready in time.

-----------

Isabel noticed Maria going up to the Student Council table at lunchtime and considering all of the guy stuff available.

"You aren't really thinking of shelling out hard-earned money to get Michael jewelry for Valentine's, are you??"

Maria looked up at her and smiled feebly. "Well, it would be unexpected, and that's what we said we were doing this time."

Isabel rolled her eyes, grabbed Maria gently by the wrist and led her well away from temptation. "There's unexpected, and there's just stupid. You doing this for him would be like - well, like him actually getting you that electric toothbrush for Christmas."

"Umm, okay, yeah, I guess I can see what you m..." Something about that apparently took a long time to get through Maria's ears and into her mind. "He... he was going to get me an electric toothbrush?"

"Err... yeah, he actually bought the thing, even. Max told him not to."

"Ohh." There was something in the tone that was more emotive than just 'oh, how weird and quintessentially Michael,' and Isabel couldn't place it actually. Then she snickered.

"What, are you telling me you'd actually have *wanted* an electric toothbrush?"

"Um, no, not really, I mean, not more than the bumper and my earrings." Maria giggled. "But, well... I remember wanting one when I was like eleven and Mom saying that we couldn't afford it. Ever since, I guess, it's had an odd nostalgia factor for me, in a weird way. I... I've never gone out and gotten myself one, mostly because I think it might be sort of an anticlimax after all the buildup, but it'd have been really cool if he did get me one, especially if he didn't know all the back story. Or, you know, hadn't been TOLD to by one of his best friends."

"Well, suit yourself, but don't hold your breath on him trying that one particular shot in the dark without a little coaching of some kind," Isabel warned her. "And maybe I'll butt out next time, just because apparently Michael's instincts can sometimes be right on target when it comes to you." Maria smiled at that. "So, well... getting something that Michael would like is pretty much just the age-old problem of buying present for any guy's guy... there really are no expected choices, which means that you don't need to worry too much about being Unexpected."

"Yeah," Maria agreed. "Well, what about you? Any chance you're going to pull some big spectacular Valentine's Day surprise for Alex? I... I know that you don't have him all to play with by yourself lately, but that doesn't mean that you can't make an effort."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that. "I dunno, I've kind of been trying to get my own heart in order before playing games with anybody else's, especially Alex Whitman's. Making resolutions and that entire sort of thing. And... and he's so happy about the Leanna thing, that I feel like moving in on him would be ruining that. If - if Alex and me are meant to be, then we'll have our chance later. This particular special day is for someone else." Isabel thought about mentioning the whole deal with Tess asking her to go out with Kyle on Valentine's, and then decided not to. She still wasn't at all sure what to make of that.

"Okay, so, let's see - birthday presents," Maria muttered. "Well, there was that sketching thing that he did once for a few weeks because of an alien thing and then dropped entirely. Maybe he'd appreciate a bit of a nudge to encourage his artistic inclinations again. I could get him some charcoals and a big pad of paper, or something."

"Hmm. You could offer to pose for him, instead of or in combination with the above," Isabel said, grinning a big and far from innocent grin. "That'd be a Valentine's day present that he wouldn't soon forget, I'll bet you."

"Oh, no, I couldn't... could I?" Maria looked up at Isabel. "Seriously??"

"Umm... well, that's kind of up to you," Isabel said. "I was about half serious when I said it - that way, you can either ignore it completely or really think about doing it - that's up to you." She sighed. "The only thing is, if you do actually do anything of the kind, I never want to hear about it, and I definitely don't want to ever see the pictures. Sound fair."

"Totally," Maria said, and sat down on one of the benches just outside the cafeteria. "So, what kind of resolutions?"

"Hmm?" Isabel took a moment to recognize the dropped conversational reference that Maria was picking up, and she sat down too. "Well, they kind of change from day to day, unfortunately. Stuff like 'I will not stop paying attention to a guy I really like just because there's other stressful stuff going on in my life.' I think that that's a good one."

"Definitely," Maria agreed. "Well, I wish you luck with that."

"Thanks." Isabel just sat there as Maria got up and headed into the cafeteria to try to find herself something edible.

-----------

After his last class of the day finished, Max walked calmly through the halls, waving at Michael without going over to say hi to him, put most of his books back into his locker, and headed towards the parking lot. He tried to be aware of who was around him without obviously looking around like he was watching for someone following him. It didn't really take that much sneakiness, he figured - Tess was not generally a subtle person, and unless she saw a very good reason to tail him from a distance, (like already knowing that he was seeing Liz under relatively covert conditions, which he hoped that Tess didn't,) she'd probably call his name and run over to him if she spotted him.

But no, there were no alien sightings at all along the way, and Max pulled out, drove through a few side streets, and turned out onto the main road a few blocks east of the school. Sure enough, there Liz was, walking down the sidewalk as if she was planning to hike all the way back home to the Crashdown. But she hopped quickly into the shotgun seat when Max paused at the curb for a moment, and then he doubled back through the side streets so that they were headed west out of town, instead of east.

"Okay, hi honey," Max said, interrupting himself, and Liz reached out to lay a hand on his arm for a second, which always seemed to electrify him. "Where, uhh, where am I headed once we get out there near Frazier woods??"

"Umm... I don't really have anyplace special in mind - you just go where you like," Liz said lightly. "Or better yet, just drive anywhere at all, and then we end up where we end up." She sighed. "The only thing that really matters to me is being with you. Everything else is just, ehh - scenery."

"Hmmm." Max thought about that, and thought about turning left, which would take them south, away from the woods and the Indian reservation, but there really wasn't much in that direction aside from desert and sand. Well - one kinduv cool canyon, which might count as scenery, but instead he kept on driving for a long while.

When they were nearly at the turnoff road for the woods, Liz sighed. "You know... I kind of think that we should be talking a bit more or something."

Max laughed. "Yeah, I get that. Guess I just... I find it so hard to believe that I'm actually here with you that I can't think of much to say... oh, except here." He managed to reach into a pocket, take the necklace and offer it to you. "Happy Valentine's day, a few days early. I hope you like it."

"Ohh... Max, you shouldn't have, really." But Liz took it. "It... it's really sweet." She sighed. "And I guess I can't wear it anywhere that Tess might see."

"Umm, no," Max admitted. "Especially since I bumped into Kyle and Tess not long after I bought it, and she noticed the chain." Max sighed. "Well, you could do the bit where you wear it underneath your shirt, right? That way, nobody else will know, but... umm, well, you'll always have it close."

"Yeah, I guess that could work," Liz admitted. "Did either of them have valentine's jewelry either??"

"I, I think I saw Kyle slipping a bracelet into his pocket just as they came up to me," he told her, turning onto the side road. "They were just coming from the student council table."

"So... so she was there when he bought it?" Liz asked, perking up slightly.

"Yeah, but still..." Max sighed. "I kept getting a weird vibe from them. Maybe you should ask him how he thinks things are going. He might think it was too weird if I started butting in. It's you that he made the pact with, after all."

"Well, yeah," Liz agreed. "But... but I don't want to worry too much about Kyle and Tess right now, and I don't have to hide the necklace just yet." She had already fastened it around her neck. "Do... do you remember the father and child camping trip?"

"Yeah, like I could ever forget." Max laughed slightly. "Did I tell you that I used my powers in the card game with your father - to sink a high hand of mine so that he'd win?"

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "You mentioned that last spring, during our... well, our only decent honeymoon period as a couple." She sighed. "Between finding the orbs, and when Tess had really started to make trouble."

"Not that much of a honeymoon, especially at first," Max reminded her. "The parents grounded us both for weeks - we could hardly even see each other."

"I didn't care." Liz sighed. "Listen, about those cards, did you remember to fix whatever cards you changed??"

"Umm... no - I didn't have a chance to," Max admitted. "Because, umm, well Mister Whitman picked up all the cards and started shuffling, and I couldn't risk having anybody see it change. Kept looking for a two of diamonds that I could change back into an eight, but there wasn't one, and then I had to go and wait because Izzie and I didn't know when we'd get a chance to sneak off and look for the alien site place."

"Right... I *thought* it was a two," Liz said, and giggled.

"You did... how?"

"Well, my dad told me that they started to play stud once you dropped out of the game. My dad had four twos, one of them in the hole, and he ended up betting something like fifteen hundred dollars against your dad." Max's mouth dropped open - he could see where this was going. "Yeah, your dad had a two in the hole as well, so he figured that my dad was bluffing, because yours had three jacks face up. They got into a huge row when the showdown came out and everybody realized that there were five twos in the deck. There were accusations of cheating, and even once your father was convinced that it was either an innocent mistake or a coincidence because somebody else might have been futzing with the deck, he still wanted the entire deal to be a wash. My dad kept insisting that in any game of poker you need to keep in mind the possibility that the deck might not be entirely kosher, and that after the cards are all shown is the wrong time to be complaining."

"Hmm..." Max considered that. His father could probably have afforded to lose fifteen hundred dollars in a poker game, but Mom wouldn't have been pleased. "What did they end up settling on?"

"Umm, my dad kept the pot, except for except for nine hundred dollars that he gave back to yours... that was the amount he'd put in in the last two raises, I think, and they agreed that was relatively fair. Still wasn't bad, considering that two of the other people had bet in the early rounds as well. Dad bought some pots for mom and a painting for the cafe dining room with the money he won."

"Cool," Max said. "How about we go try and find that camping site? Do you suppose anybody'd be using it this year?"

"Ehh, probably not in the middle of the week, but you never know." Liz laughed, and Max's heart ached with wanting to hold her right there and then, driving safely be damned. "I can't wait to see it again."

"I can't wait for a lot of things," Max teased her. Liz just smiled to herself.

After a few more minutes something occurred to Max. "Wait a second... we were playing like nickel ante. How the heck did they get up to fifteen freaking hundred dollars?"

"I think once all the sons dropped out of the game, that was when they switched to stud, and they raised the stakes," Liz said. "Fiver to ante, and Pot limits - you can raise anything up to the amount already in the pot."

"Hmm." Max thought. It'd still have taken quite a few re-raises to get up to that point, but maybe... "And just how much do you know about poker, Liz?"

"Oh, dad taught me everything he knows, which is quite a bit," Liz bragged. "You never asked to play me before."

"Hmm... I haven't asked yet," Max said, and paused. "How about strip poker some time??"

"Wow, that's a bold suggestion," she admitted. "But - well, play your cards right in other ways, and maybe we'll have a game of that soon." Max sighed. "And wipe that grin off your face, you're not there yet."

"No, I guess neither of us are." Max thought about that, and shook his head.

"Hey, I think that's the campsite coming up ahead on our left."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Chapter 4

Kyle sighed as Tess got out of the car and headed into his house. He wasn't sure exactly WHAT to do about his Valentine's Day plans anymore. Something had changed, and the way Tess was reacting to even little innocuous things - well, he was having a very hard time reading her signals, to start with... could never make up his mind whether she was practically waving him in, or trying to throw a flag on the play that she really didn't like him back, or... or maybe that she was trying to hide something from him. He couldn't even tell if she was able to read how much he liked her.

As she used her key to open the front door and disappeared inside, though, something began to come slightly clearer in Kyle's mind. As long as he was still uncertain, he had to keep following the old course, and maybe even to push it harder. His dad had given him the game plan - stick to the inside track. So, what if he tried to talk her into grabbing a bite to eat outside of the house this evening. That sounded good. Or he could try the movie tack, but since Tess hadn't bitten hard at that one last night, she probably wouldn't be too enthusiastic about it this time. Hmm. Kyle got out of the passenger side of Tess' blue SUV, (they tended to switch cars when driving into school together, sort of a very simple carpool arrangement,) walked into the house, took a breath, opened his mouth, and...

"I wonder where your Dad is," Tess remarked idly. "He usually hasn't been out when we come home - since he, well, you know."

Kyle did know, but he wasn't sure how to react to this, because he'd been preparing what he was going to say so carefully. And talking about where they could eat after Tess said something like that about his Dad didn't seem to make much sense either. So Kyle tried to concentrate on this new topic, and finally he managed to catch hold of a thought that was worth saying. "Maybe he's with..."

"With Ms DeLuca again?" Tess finished. "Hmm... maybe. Good for them, I guess, if that's it." She sighed. "Maybe it'd be just the two of us for dinner tonight. How about some of that chili that your Dad put in the freezer, and pancake-mix biscuits?"

Some kind of mental wires got crossed in Kyle's brain at that point, or at least, that was the only excuse he was ever able to give for what he said next. Instead of taking the cue that Tess had just given him about dinner, he blurted out, for no earthly reason, "What would you think about going to live with the DeLucas?"

Tess turned around at the doorway to the dining room and stared at him. "With... with Maria?? I, I mean, her mom's kinduv cool, yeah, but... sheesh, Kyle, I thought that we settled all of this 'me moving out' stuff last week! Unless... unless you're having second thoughts and decided that you really want your room back, no matter what happens to me."

"No, no," Kyle insisted. "I... I love having you here. It's just...." It's just that I really like you, and I want us to date, and my dad doesn't want to have two teenage kids in his house with a major case of the lust bunnies for each other. Kyle wondered what would happen if he actually told Tess that. But given his track record for blurting stuff out, it seemed unlikely that two blurts would make a right this time. "It, it was kind of a hypothetical question. Just wondered. Don't... don't feel like you're not welcome, just because..."

"So, you're telling me that there's no reason you have to think that me having to move out is something that I might need to worry about?" Tess asked. Kyle nodded. "Say it out loud."

What?? "Umm, there's no particular reason that you should need to worry about having to move out of here."

Tess considered a moment. "I... I'm sorry to keep pushing at this, but I've gotten to know you pretty well, and I think I've noticed one of your tells for when you're not speaking the entire truth..."

"Okay, then it's my dad," Kyle muttered. This might not be all of the truth either, but maybe it would be enough to satisfy her. "Just... just something I've picked up from him, and it's not something that you need to worry about YET - really it isn't. Just... just at some point in the future, he was thinking it'd be better for you to be in another place, with - well, with a parental figure and foster sibling of your own gender to relate to, instead of being stuck in here with a couple of really clueless guys. Now can we just drop it, and go back to talking about dinner?"

Tess seemed startled by all of that. "Umm... so he's just worried about it warping my development or something, not having a mother figure or something?" Kyle shrugged. "That's crazy. Plenty of girls grow up with brothers and single fathers. What if I really had been his daughter, would he have..."

"But... but you're not really his daughter," Kyle said softly, because this was striking too close to home. "I'm sorry, but you're not really my sister either. That... that changes things."

"Yeah, I... I guess it does." Tess sighed and collapsed into one of the dining room chairs. "I guess I never had a mother figure even before I came to Roswell... not that Ed was much of a father figure either, but at least - well, he was something, you know??"

"Yeah, I do," Kyle said. "I... I really am sorry that I blurted it out - I didn't mean to worry you or anything, and there's no reason you should have known yet. Promise that you won't say anything about it to Dad yet?" Tess nodded. "And... well, chili and biscuits sounds pretty good actually, but I was wondering about going out for dinner."

"Hmm." Tess mulled that over. "Yeah, I guess. We could go and hit the Crashdown."

"Well... maybe." Once again Kyle was forced to evaluate that choice for ulterior motives, and the results were inconclusive. Was Tess hoping to keep an eye on Liz by being at the cafe? Or did she expect to run into Max there? Both of those seemed possible. "Okay, well, we don't need to head over yet I guess... anything you need to get done here?"

"Feel like changing," she remarked, gesturing at her school clothes, which immediately triggered an embarrassingly long series of mental fantasy images about watching Tess undressing in Kyle's brain. "And - oh, did you hear about that Medieval Faire thing tomorrow?"

"Well yeah, I was right there next to you when Max mentioned it," he said pointedly.

"I've got a few ideas for my costume... but I'll need to surf around on the web for a bit, maybe make some phone calls." She looked at the clock. "None too much time. How about we head over around five o'clock? Take your car." And before he even got a chance to reply, Tess had disappeared down the corridor.

Kyle shook his head, and started to wonder if distracting Tess over the Valentine's Day season might possibly be more than his heart could take without giving up.

-----------

"So, medieval faire stuff," Max said, squeezing Liz's hand slightly. They were both lying back on the star watching rock near the campsite, and the sun had gone down a few minutes before. Liz wanted to spot the first star to come out in the evening twilight and make a wish on it. "Are you coming along? Got any ideas?"

"Umm, sure, it sounds fun," Liz said. "Though I'm disappointed that it can't be more like a real date, since... well, 'she whom I shall not name' will be there." Max chuckled. "Man, I hope that Kyle seals the deal soon, because this really is getting old fast." Max nodded. "Hmm... one of those peasant girl outfits might look really cute on me."

"Oh, come on," Max said, pulling her arm close to him so that he could kiss the back of her fingers. "If there was ever anyone who was born to be a princess, it's you."

"Cute," she said. "But - well, since there's no restrictions on the outfits that kids from school can dress up in if they're not full members of the medieval re-enactment society, somehow I suspect that there'll already be a bunch of princesses, queens, duchesses, baronesses, and other ladies of high breeding." She sighed. "I... I don't really want to get lost in that crowd."

"Hmm... fair enough," Max admitted. "How about something really unusual then? A... a wizard's apprentice, or a witch?" Liz grunted. "A girl blacksmith??" That one made her laugh loudly. "Just a thought."

"Hmm... okay. What about you? Probably there's going to be a bunch of knights, especially if the jocks come out in any great numbers. I... I know that you really are an important lord, but... but maybe you should slum it this time too. A... a cooper, or a boat wright?"

Max chuckled. "Yeah, I'm not sure that anybody else would choose to come as a boat wright. I... I like the idea, actually."

"Cool," Liz decided. "Oh, hey." She pointed up into the sky. "Is... is that one?"

"Umm... wow, I... I'm not quite sure," Max said. "I... I think it looks like there might be something there, yeah. We'll have to wait a bit longer to tell."

"Okay, but I'm not going to look away for too long," Liz said. "I... I have so many hopes and wishes, you know? For - for the two of us. Especially if we can actually be together openly, without need to worry about... about *her.*"

"Dreams," Max said softly, and sighed.

"Yeah, I guess so. Like... like dressing up and going to the junior prom together, and... and maybe convincing our families to go somewhere for summer vacation together, since I don't think they'd let us go by ourselves. Nowhere too fancy, but maybe a beach on the ocean on the Atlantic coast or something."

"Maybe Jersey," Max suggested. "It's crowded I know, but pretty, and there are some parts of the shore there that are still clean. And... and we could go into Manhattan a few times. I know that you've always wanted to see the big city lights."

"Yeah, I guess you're right - I have," Liz admitted. "That does sound really nice." She sighed. "I... I wonder what Isabel would think about that."

"Depends on whether she's dating... anybody here in Roswell," Max said.

"Anybody like... Alex?" Liz asked.

"Well... I can't deny that it'd be nice. I... I love my sister, I know Alex, and I do think that they'd be really good for each other. I don't know anything about this Swedish girl Leanna, so I'm not going to say anything against her, but... but I'm not really rooting for her and Alex to go the distance. I admit that."

"Hmm." Liz considered that. "Okay, it's definitely something."

"Hmm?"

"Up there in the sky," Liz repeated. "I... I'm going to make a wish on it, before there's anything else."

"Alright, go ahead," Max said. "I think that wishing on planets is okay, though I'm not sure that it's a planet. And... and if it were a low satellite, we'd have seen it move by now."

"Hmm." Liz thought about that. "What if it was one of the communications satellites? Way out there in the geo-stationary belt?"

"I don't think that we've made a satellite that would be that bright and visible that far away," Max told her. "Go ahead and wish. I'll make one too. Remember: no telling each other."

"Ooh, you're a stickler," Liz teased him. There was a quiet moment as they both made their silent wishes. "So, umm... what now?"

"I... I'd like to stay out here with you a little while longer," Max said. "Wait for more of the stars to come out, so that we can figure out what that one is."

"But... but you have to be at work in like twenty minutes," Liz pointed out, "and it'll take at least fifteen for us to drive back into town."

"Ohh," Max said, looking at his watch. He'd thought it was earlier - but sunset was starting to get later as they went through February. "I... I don't care. I'll sort things out with Brody. Just... just don't want to go back to Roswell quite yet."

"Hmm... well okay, if you're sure," Liz said. "Maybe you should give him a call now and let him know that you'll be late?"

"Maybe." Max fumbled a cell phone out of his pocket. "Let's see... yes, we've got one bar. Worth a try." He dialed and through the digital noise artifact, managed to make Brody's assistant understand that he had a personal thing that had popped up unexpectedly, and he'd be there around seven thirty.

It wasn't actually too long before they could see a few recognizable constellations, and once the handle of the big dipper had 'come out' Liz observed that it was pointed directly towards 'her star', which was thus probably Arcturus. The two teenagers kissed a few times on their way back to Max's car, and he bounced the Jeep down the forest trails a bit more quickly than was comfortable.

Once they were back in town, Max parked in the small parking lot next to the UFO Center, and they got out, and Max kissed her one more time before rushing inside. Liz looked around a bit, and then decided to head into the Crashdown. She didn't have a shift to work tonight, but maybe she could just hang out and be a customer for a change.

"Liz!" someone called to her as soon as she got through the door. Liz scanned the sparse crowd for a bit before spotting Kyle and Tess at a nearby booth. It was Tess who had called out her name. Well, at least the fact that they're here together looks like a good sign, Liz decided to herself. She went over to stand next to the table.

"Yeah? How's it going?"

"Umm, alright," Tess said. "But I was just wondering... mmm, if you'd seen Max around? I was just wondering, hadn't seen him since mid-afternoon at school, and so..."

"Come on, Tess, Liz isn't..." Kyle started, and Liz decided that she needed to cut him off at that point. The quicker that she was to admit that she and Max had been together, the less likely Tess would be to think that they were, in fact, sneaking around. (If that made any sense.)

"Yeah, umm, he and I both just got back into town," Liz said. Kyle and Tess both looked a bit surprised at the fact that she'd said it. "We were outside of town, working on a... an astronomy project." Well, that was a bit of a fib, though their natural sciences class was indeed doing some astronomy stuff, and in fact the teacher had said that there would be a star watching assignment later on. Hopefully Tess wouldn't dig deeply enough to separate the truth from the fiction.

"Oh," Tess said, her face falling slightly. "And he... oh, did he have to get to the Center?"

"Yeah," Liz nodded. "He was a bit late, actually, because he wanted to finish identifying the stars that we'd seen." And that was kind of true enough. "So, how are you guys doing? Do... do you mind if I sit down, or would I just be a third wheel?" She wondered, in retrospect, whether it was counterproductive of her to be pushing Kyle's inside track.

"Umm... I guess that's up to you," Tess said. "And, well, up to Kyle, because I think he's the one who's going to have to shove over to make room for you, 'cause I ain't budging."

Liz shot a look over at Kyle, who shrugged, and then shook his head very slightly. "Ehh, actually, I think I'll head upstairs and see if there's anything good on TV. Nice talking to you both."

"Seeya, Liz," Kyle said, and waved as she headed towards the back of the cafe.

----------

"Okay, umm... I think I'm changed," Maria called out through her bedroom door. "Do you wanna see?"

"Umm, of course I want to see," Michael's answer came back. "I thought that was the whole reason for me sticking around while you tried out your costume."

"I thought the reason you were sticking around because you were hoping that we would make out afterwards," she teased.

"Just come on out," Michael moaned in frustration. Maria took another look in the mirror, closed her eyes, shook her head, took a shallow breath, and reached out blindly for the bathroom doorknob. Somewhat to her surprise, she got it immediately. Stepped out, turned halfway to the right, and opened her eyes. At that angle, she could only see hallway wall, so she turned a bit further to find Michael.

"Okay, what do you think?" She struck a pose, lifting up her right hand to play with the old-fashioned dangly earrings she was wearing.

"Umm, wow. I definitely think 'wow.'" Michael announced, and Maria giggled. She had put a lot of effort into this, and 'wow' was about the best first impression that she could think of getting from Michael. All of the clothes were very old-fashioned and yet showy, though she wasn't at all certain that they were quite old-fashioned enough to avoid becoming anachronisms at the faire. (They probably wouldn't be the only ones, though.) A peasant-style tunic top, long straight skirt, and an apron hanging from her waist above the skirt. A definitely plainer cloak overtop all of those, pulled around her shoulders but not fastened tight. Her hair was mostly tied up under a colored and patterned scarf, except for one thick lock that fell down behind her left shoulder. And she was wearing about all the old-fashioned jewelry that she could find, not just the earrings but also finger rings, a bracelet, two different necklaces, (one falling lower from her collar than the other did,) and an arm-ring that was nearly hidden by the sleeves of her tunic.

"Glad you like, sir."

"But... but what are you supposed to be?" Michael had to ask, shaking his head slightly. "The clothes are definitely too bright and the jewelry too fancy to be a peasant girl, or working-class anything, but... but the effect of the outfit isn't like a noble girl either. So, umm, I'm not sure what..."

"I'm a gypsy of course," Maria pointed out. "They had gypsies back in the middle ages, right?? In fact, that's when the stereotypes about them pretty much arose, even though it was probably a long time before their lifestyle started to change any." She shook her head and tried to get into character. "Come with me, brave night, and I shall read the lines of your palm and tell you your future. For but a single piece of silver... or perhaps the equivalent in services rendered... hehehee!"

"Okay, well, it wasn't what I was expecting," Michael admitted, smiling and stepping close to her. "Partly because, as you said, gypsy girls aren't unique to the middle ages, and their lives were probably a lot of the same for a long period of time, even though things around them were changing a lot more. But... but you'll be an interesting addition to the faire I think." He sighed slightly. "I hope that my costume is as good."

"Do you mind telling me what you have in mind?" Maria asked.

"Hmm... maybe I should at that." But Michael didn't elaborate for a long moment. Maria shot him a look and then moved past him into the living room, shaking her body underneath the gypsy clothes ever so slightly. Michael laughed. "Guess you have ways of making me talk, huh??"

"That's not the way we said it back in ye olden times," Maria giggled. "But hey, if it's working I'm not complaining."

"Okay, well, I actually went to talk to some of the guys in the historical society today during lunch to see if they had any suggestions," he admitted. Maria blinked. "Well, I just kind of figured that I don't really know much about it, and getting a hint from some people who do would be better than taking a blind guess and looking foolish." Michael came into the living room and sat down on the sofa. "One of them offered to set me up with a costume as his trusty Squire."

"Hmm." Maria considered that. "Do you have to follow him around the whole time and carry his things and do whatever he says?"

"No, no," he assured her. "Not for most of the faire. He's going to be riding in some of the exhibition tilting and fighting a long sword duel, so I'll have to help him get ready for that and get him out of his heavy armor afterward, like a real squire would. Aside from that, I'll be able to hang around with you and the rest of the guys, and just say that I'm so-and-so's squire."

"Well, I hope that he doesn't mind his squire making out with a hot gypsy girl," Maria said, sitting down on Michael's lap, where she made a firm yet flexible bundle of woman, and kissed his cheek. Michael turned his head so that they were lip to lip, and tried to slip his fingers up under the tunic top, but was thwarted at first by the unfamiliar style of the top.

-----------

"Hey there," Isabel said, coming into the computer lab the next morning. "Are you in the middle of anything really important?"

Alex turned around in his seat and smiled at her. "Not really. Just fooling around with random mazes." He gestured at the screen, so Isabel came forward to take a closer look. In a drawing program, a grid of horizontal and vertical lines was marked out - a perimeter rectangle of dark blue, with some partitions of a very faint grey, and others of much thicker black. If the grey lines were simple placeholders for where new 'walls' could be erected, and the black were walls, Isabel realized, they did make a sort of maze, if a somewhat sparse one - if she were inside, she didn't think it would take her too long to find her way around the walls to wherever she wanted to go. On the right side of the screen was a listing of all kinds of numbers and brief descriptions, which didn't really make much sense to her.

"Umm... okay, how does it work?" she asked.

"Well, I set up the grid," he said, "counted the number of possible walls, and assigned them all numbers. Then I got a list of random numbers from a web program, and have been filling them in according to the list."

Isabel nodded dubiously. "And -- why??"

"Well, I'm not quite sure yet," Alex admitted. "They might be useful for a kind of computer game that I'm thinking about trying to write, maybe this summer." He sighed. "So how are you this fine February day, Isabel?"

"Pretty good," she said, and smiled. "Looking forward to the medieval faire. You're coming with, right? Maria said that she'd gotten you to agree."

"Yes, I shall be part of our merry troupe, or whatever we should call it," Alex laughed. "Was asking that the only reason you came in?"

"Mmm... no," Isabel admitted. After a moment's pause, she pulled up another chair and sat next to Alex. "I... well, we didn't really get much of a chance to chat since I had to bail on your 'Welcome back to Roswell' party, what with - well, with mysterious blue crystals showing up, and unexpected field trips to Texas, and... well, we don't need to go over all of that I guess." Alex nodded. "I just... I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to talk more."

Alex smiled slightly. "Yeah. Well, I don't think I have any particular plans for lunch... do you want to go over to Choughey's and grab some sandwiches or something?"

"Yeah, I'd like the... darn it." Isabel shook her head. "I, umm, I agreed to help this freshman girl out with her Shakespeare... we're meeting in the library at a quarter to noon." She looked really disappointed at having to say it, and Alex reached out to catch her fingers in his hand. "How... how about tomorrow, though?"

"Tomorrow - as in Valentine's day?" Alex asked, blinking innocently. Isabel couldn't help laughing at the expression on his face.

"Well, unless you'd rather put it off until the day after Valentine's," she said. "It... it's not like I'd be keeping you from anyone else I expect... or am I wrong?"

"Hmm." Alex gently took his hand back and busied himself saving his work on the computer for a moment. "Well, this would seem to be as good a moment as any to ask a question that's been on my mind. Have you heard about Leanna?"

"As it happens, yeah, I... I sort of shook Liz down for any details that you might have told her about your Sweden trip," Isabel told him forthrightly. "Leanna counts as a very big detail, it seems to me."

"Yeah, I guess that she does." Alex sighed. "I... I didn't go there expecting to hit on pretty Swedish girls, or to fall in love, as far as that went." Isabel thought about saying something, but decided to let him muse at his own pace. "And... well, though the thought just might have entered my mind that it would be good to meet some other girl who could take my mind off of everything that I'd hoped you and I could be, and that somehow had never worked out... well, it wasn't really like that with Leanna, at least not on purpose."

Isabel smiled, and said something that she wouldn't have expected of herself. "So what was it like?" Being there with Alex, without the romantic tension looming terribly obviously between them, was something that she could hardly even remember, but somehow it was very easy for her to relate to him just as a friend, and to want to hear about his life. Even if that life included a new girlfriend.

"Well, I was in town by myself, one of my first few days in the country, and I didn't feel that confident in my Swedish yet. Was trying to find a particular bookstore that had sheet music for some local pop songs and old folk tunes, that sort of thing, because I wanted to play something for Miz Olsen on their piano. I'd already tried some Raging Reed and one of my own songs, but they didn't really make the best impression. Oh, she was very nice about them, but..."

"Okay, I've got the picture," Isabel said. "So you were in the city... was this Stockholm?"

"No, Uppsala," Alex answered. "Stockholm was, ehh, it was more than an hour's drive away I think, which is further than they're used to." Isabel nodded. An hour's drive didn't seem like much way out in the desert, but America was bigger and more spread-out than Europe was, mostly. "So anyway, I was out there on some street the name of which I can't remember, and couldn't pronounce at the time. Had my directions in one hand, a partially-folded-up map in the other, and I must have looked VERY clueless indeed."

Alex sighed and continued the story. "A group of teenagers walked past me at that point. Most of them didn't pay me much attention, except for one pretty girl with straight blonde hair, who turned around, came a few steps back towards me, and asked 'Hey, are you Canadian'??"

Isabel burst out laughing at the unexpectedness of that. "What did you say?"

"The truth. 'No, but I'm from Roswell.' She laughed - I wasn't sure if she'd even recognize Roswell, but apparently our reputation precedes us. And, well, we introduced each other, she helped me find the store, and the sheet music that I'd come for, and I bought her supper as a thank you. She asked me for my phone number as we headed back to the bus stop, so I traded her for hers."

"Sounds sweet," Isabel said. It also occurred to her that Alex had been taking a passive role in parts of that story, which he'd also sometimes done with her... just kind of coasted and let her make the big move. Then again, sometimes Alex had made moves and she'd shut him down, which probably didn't encourage him much for trying again. "I... I'd still like to see your slides sometime, Alex," she blurted out suddenly.

Alex's eyes got big for a moment. "Umm, sure. Do you want to figure out where and when, or should I come up with something of my own?"

"Definitely you," Isabel said. "Umm, I'd better go and get ready for first period."

"Sure," Alex said. "Meet you tomorrow at the Second street doors." Isabel got up and shot him a questioning look. "So that we can go out to lunch."

"Yeah, alright. Great." Isabel had to stop her arms from hugging herself until she was through the lab door and out of sight.

Out of ALEX'S sight, that was. However, Kyle was right there outside the lab, and saw Isabel hugging herself, and he shot her a very confused look. Isabel did her best to shrug it off and head towards her locker.

Then she reminded what she'd promised Tess about going on a Valentine's Day date with Kyle. What if the only time that Tess could arrange that was lunch? Well... Isabel didn't really feel that she'd had to keep her whole day open based on an open-ended request from Tess. If she said lunch, Isabel would just say that she was busy for lunch. That would cover it, right??

-----------

Kyle came out of the bathroom stall, (and some little freshman boy instantly snuck right in to take it as soon as he was through the door,) and tried to catch a look at himself in one of the sink mirrors. No dice. Normally there wouldn't be any kind of problem with that, but on this afternoon, all kind of guys were inside the men's washroom, nearly all of them either getting into their costumes or checking details. Finally Kyle managed to squeeze in close enough to get a look... tight, dark brown leather pants and jacket, black boots, and a hood drawn close around his face. Yeah, that'd work.

"Hey, is that you Valenti?" a Knight with a highly polished shield called out from three spots down the line. Ray Vanner, one of the defensive linemen on the team. "What're you supposed to be?"

Kyle gave Ray his best roguish grin. "Why, I'm a cutpurse, a filthy robber. What else?" Ray laughed, and Kyle picked up the bag carrying his regular school clothes and headed out into the corridor. Out there, too, the space was crowded with kids, some already in Faire costume, some not yet. Kyle didn't immediately spot Tess, and doubted that she'd be ready yet, however, some impulse drove him to search the entire multitude for her, which wasn't that easy considering that she was so short and he was far from the tallest guy around - also given that he wasn't sure if her outfit would leave her pale hair, (easily Tess' most noticeable feature at a distance,) visible, or if she'd have it covered under a hat or a scarf.

Eventually Kyle was satisfied that she hadn't emerged yet, however, the amount of crowd management effort that would apparently be involved in maintaining a spot from which he could easily view new arrivals emerging from the girls' bathroom was far too much for him to keep up, and so he went inside the cafeteria and sat down at one of the tables nearest the door to wait. Max came through, wearing rough and unglamorous clothes... had he decided to come as a peasant or a laborer? Kyle couldn't be bothered asking, and Max didn't give away that he'd even recognized anybody inside the room - he'd come through, looked around once as if checking for amorous hybrids, and immediately crossed the room to leave via one of the far doors that led out onto the field. Kyle wondered who he would be meeting out there, if anybody.

And then, there she was, in the doorway the next time he looked back. Even though a lot of girls had, of course, dressed up fancy as medieval princesses or marquesas or ladies of other description, Tess Harding managed to put them all to shame without saying a word or striking an obvious attitude. It wasn't something that was easy for him to describe - a noble bearing, a regal presence maybe, but those were trite phrases that didn't really convey much. Her gown was a deep, rich rose color, elegantly flowing, with a kind of a train at the back, (but not a really over-fancy train like the ones at weddings where the bride had little kids around carrying it, just kinduv a flourish of fabric behind her,) and drapey skirts that fell just about to floor level, obscuring her feet without getting dusty. (It sort of looked like there might be one of those hoopey deals under the skirts to support them, but it wasn't a BIG hoop that might get comically ridiculous.)

Without knowing why, Kyle made his best attempt at a bow. "The good lady Harding honors me with her..." (not 'graceful', or beautiful, so what?) "With her *exquisite* presence."

"Well, em, yes," Tess replied, with just a touch of hauteur in her own voice. "And... and who exactly are you supposed to be?"

Kyle half-stifled a chuckle as he realized just how inappropriate their personas were to be spending much time together in the Faire - especially considering that he wanted to be her romantic escort and not just a plutonic friend. For a moment Kyle wished that he'd just joined the herd of jock Knights and Lords - at least then, he'd be a fit match for her. "Just... just a common robber I'm afraid." A slightly weak bolt of inspiration hit. "But... but I shall be pleased to act as your ladyship's guard during the festivities, to keep any other pickpockets who might be at the fair from victimizing you. If I practice the trade, does it not stand well to reason that I know the signs... thereof?" Tess raised one eyebrow at him... and all of a sudden he noticed her hairdo, which had sort of been forgotten while he was looking at the dress. She had somehow changed it completely over the course of a few minutes, (using her powers in one of the toilet stalls perhaps?) and turned her usual tight curls into a mane of loose golden blonde waves, long wide locks of it flowing in exactly the same curves, over and over again. It was incredibly sexy and glamorous to Kyle... more fitting for a forties movie star than a medieval lady perhaps, but hey, who was he to quibble about a few pretty anachronisms??

"Well, I shall accept your... your kind offer," she replied in character, "and if my pockets remain whole and unpilfered by the time of our departure in the evening, you might even find yourself rewarded for honesty." And then Tess smiled, just slightly, but the change seemed impressive since she had mostly kept an impassive expression ever since her entrance, her pretty features as calm as if carven from stone. And then she giggled a classic Tess giggle that was definitely not in character. "C'mon, let's see if Max or Michael are around."

"Okay... actually, I, umm... I saw Max pass through a few minutes ago," Kyle said, pointing over at the far door. "He... he wasn't dressed up or anything yet - maybe he was going to go home and change there?"

"Hmm." Tess considered that. "Well, Michael said that he and Maria would be waiting at the East doors until ten minutes to, if anybody wanted to meet them there. Come on." So Kyle got up and followed her back out into the hallway. The crowd had thinned out somewhat, but there were still quite a lot of knights and princesses, peasants and witches and all kinds of other medieval people. Kyle spotted Vicky Delaney dressed up not very convincingly as an 'ugly prophet hag', and spent a brief moment chatting with her. The corridor leading up towards the East doors were almost empty.

Maria's costume was just as impressive as Tess', if in a different way - she made a very hot gypsy, and Kyle had to force his hormones to pay attention to just his one intended Valentine. Michael looked pretty cool in his gear, though Kyle couldn't quite figure out who he was supposed to be... not a traditional knight, though he was carrying a sword and a big long spear or lance. "Umm... okay, I'll try a guess. A soldier? Part of the Duke's night watch??"

Michael stood up a little straighter, though his face quirked downwards. "I," he announced confidently, "am the devoted squire of his grace, the good knight Sir Ralston!"

"Hmm." Kyle considered that. "A squire, ehh?" He considered busting Guerin's chops, making some crack about how much fun it was to be a REAL man's lackey, but decided against it - that shield would probably hurt a lot if Michael decided to try whaling on him with it. "Sounds a little conformist to me, but hey. Whatever." Just in case Michael got any ideas, Kyle pulled out his thief's knife, a nice fancy one that was probably the best single part of his costume, and started to carefully toy with it.

"Okay, now that you guys have got that over with," Tess said pointedly, "are we waiting longer, or can we go?"

"No, we've got more than five minutes left I think," Maria said.

"How do you know?" Michael asked. "None of us can wear watches, after all."

"I... I have a pretty good sense of time," Maria shot back, "and I took a look at the clock in the hall just before we came into the stairwell."

"Doing pretty good too, I think," Alex announced from halfway up the stairs. "Four forty-three and fifty-eight seconds. Don't worry. I'll slip this into my tunic's inside pocket before we actually get to the Faire itself." In one hand, he'd been holding a tiny little gadget, possibly a small digital watch without a watchstrap. In his other arm nestled a kind of lute.

"Oh my gawd, I *love* it!!" Maria squealed, looking up at her old friend. "Alex the bard! Perfect!!" Surely enough, Alex seemed to have done the part of a medieval entertainer up right, not just with the lute, but also a slightly floppy hat and a brightly colored cape over his tunic and breech pants.

"Alex is a bard?" Tess turned around to see Liz emerging through the hallway doors. "Hey, where is he?" Liz looked around, seemed to get very disappointed, and finally realized that Alex had to be on the stairs, which she completely couldn't see from where she was, so she hurried over and past Michael.

"And just who are you supposed to be?" Tess asked, sighing. Liz was wearing a bright red scoop-neck blouse and a blue skirt with a ragged hem that just reached past her knees. Most of her hair had been pulled into long braids, a style that Kyle realized she had worn to classes (with a few quick changes,) but he hadn't realized that it was probably part of her outfit.

Liz sighed and struck a pose for Tess. "I decided I'd go with what I was best at - serving wench." Kyle chuckled.

As Liz and Alex admired each other's outfits, Tess went over to Michael and Maria. "So, are we waiting any longer?"

"Well, there's still some time yet," Maria said. "But... but most of us are here, except for Max and Isabel, and maybe they..."

"They'll meet us at the fairgrounds," Liz put in. "Decided to change at home." Tess' eyes narrowed. "Um, I ran into Isabel before my last class, and she said..."

"Never mind," Michael interrupted. "Okay, well, should we take two cars I guess, or..."

Tess pulled out a modern key ring from one of the pockets of her gown and tossed it to Kyle. "Well, guard, I guess that you get to be my chariot driver today too. Wouldn't be able to work the pedals in this skirt."

"Wait, Kyle's a guard?" Michael said. "I thought he was a..."

"Never mind, it's a long story, and I'll tell you later," Kyle promised.

"Sheesh." Tess rolled her eyes and turned to Michael. "It's a sad day when you're the only one approaching my kind of people, squire."

"Hey, laydeee," Alex called out. "Don't knock troubadours. The winter evenings in your castle would get awfully dry and boring without us."

"Let's just go," Liz said to him. "Don't bother rising to the bait."

They headed out into the parking lot. Alex tagged along with Kyle and Tess in her blue sport-ute 'chariot', and Liz headed off with Michael and Maria to the Jetta.

------------

"Hey, cute," Isabel said, stepping into the dining room and favoring Max with a moment's look. "What about me??"

Max chuckled slightly and tried to evaluate his sister's costume. Isabel was wearing a long black dress of some sort, the material neither very fancy nor noticeably plain, and she had her hair bound up into a flat bun on top of her head. There was a kind of a cowl behind her neck, and a white rope that she was wearing as a belt, but Max couldn't figure out what the overall theme of the outfit was supposed to be.

"Come on," Isabel chided him. "I'm a nun."

Max snickered. "I think medieval nuns were supposed to dress a LOT plainer than that, though I guess I can kinduv see the resemblance."

"Well, I didn't want to dress down TOO much because Alex will be there," she pointed out.

"Hmm... so you like Alex again?" Max said. "What about Leanna?"

"As if it weren't obvious that I never stopped liking Alex." Max had to nod agreement to that point. "As far as Leanna... well, I don't think that I have to hang back too much because of her. He said that they're realistic about the problems of how much long distance is between them. She's there, in the bottom line, and I'm right here."

"Makes sense," Max said.

"So, speaking of affairs of the heart and other such things," Isabel continued as they headed back out toward the driveway, "how are things going with you and Liz? Hoping to spend some time gettin' medieval with your Valentine's wench??"

"Umm... why did you call Liz a wench?" Max asked.

"Oops... um, no particular reason, just the first old-timey thing to call her that came to mind." Max looked coolly at her.

"Well, no, Liz and I probably won't be getting too affectionate at the faire," Max told her as the pretty nun climbed into the Jeep's front seat. "Man, I hope that Kyle makes his move with Tess soon."

"Maybe he's pitching woo already," Isabel put in. "I saw Tess' costume yesterday at the store. Definitely kinda hot, in a ladylike way."

"Well, Tess doesn't need to wear anything to get Kyle hot for her." Isabel snickered. "Anything *special* - well, you know what I mean." He sighed. "The problem is, getting Tess hot for young Mister Valenti. Unless she has more of a leather fetish than she's letting on, I'm not sure if Kyle's outfit is going to help."

"A leather fetish?" Isabel asked.

"Ohh... just wait until you see it."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Chapter 5

Part Five

The two unequal parts of the gang met up a little way inside the fairgrounds, at a food and drink courtyard serving fairly plain salads, hunks of hamburger beef that you could pick at with your fingers, and mostly-nonalcoholic ale. Michael had actually been a bit worried that even the traces that couldn't adversely affect regular teenagers might still pack a kick for the alien hybrids, based on Max's experience from the year before, and eventually Tess had agreed to ask for fruit juice or water or something that was guaranteed to be safe. (The guy behind the counter had finally handed over two roughly blown glasses full of water, grumbling about the things that he was asked by the nobility.)

"Well, why didn't you just use your powers on the beer and turn the alcohol molecules back into sugars?" Isabel had asked Michael, when she heard that story.

Michael blinked. "Umm, I hadn't thought of it," he admitted. "And... and I'm not sure that I'm good enough to do it well. Either good enough with my powers OR good enough at the chemistry, come to think of it. I can work with substances that I'm pretty familiar with, but alcohol doesn't fall into that category."

"Not even after so many years with your foster father?" Alex asked.

"Umm... no. He may have been a big fan of the sauce, but he did keep me away from it pretty strictly," Michael said, with a mix of grudging respect and perverse frustration. "Also, what if I'd managed to turn it into something really foul smelling? The last thing we want is someone to accuse me of black magic in a place like this." Max stifled a laugh.

"Sorry, you're right, it's not funny." But Isabel and Max ordered the ale and apparently were chemists enough to turn it into something that they could safely and happily drink. Alex tried Isabel's and decided that he preferred hers to the real ale.

"It's sweeter and not nearly as bitter," he decided once she had managed to get the mug back from him. "If real beer is more bitter than this fractional-alcohol stuff, then my college years may be quieter than I'd planned on."

"Oh, you get used to it quickly, or at least I did," Kyle remarked absently. "But then, I never really drank beer for the taste."

"Come on, let's go exploring," Isabel suggested, and they started moving away from the refreshments courtyard. The faire was already crowded enough that a group of eight was obviously going to have a lot of problems maneuvering around, and keeping from getting split up just by accident. And there were a few people who didn't want to be staying together at all for their own reasons. Liz managed to draw Maria aside as she brought up the rear. "Is... is there any chance that you and Michael can keep Tess busy, so that Max and I can slip off to, umm, to enjoy ourselves without her noticing??"

Maria shot a sidelong look at her friend. "Just how much enjoying yourselves are we talking about??"

Liz gazed up to the high heavens as if she were praying for patience. "Nothing too big. Just - holding hands as we talk. Stealing the occasional kiss. I don't think either of us would have the nerve to go for more in a public situation like this."

"Somehow I think that Max has nerve to spare - though he might not make a big move if you're sending him stay-on-first signals," Maria joked. "Well okay, I'm up for diversion duty - Tess hasn't been too annoying lately, after all." Liz mouthed silent thanks. "We'll try to bring Kyle along too - he's supposed to be helping to 'distract' Tess, right? That was the deal?"

"Umm, pretty much, though I think that maybe he's finding that Miss Harding is more of a challenge than he realizes," Liz said.

"And, just in case, you and Max should probably take along a lookout," Maria pointed out. "Even though I know that you'd probably prefer to be alone and third-wheel-less. But..."

"But if you can't have Michael all to yourself, then I don't get Max?" Liz finished. Maria stuck her tongue out at the other girl, just a little. "Well, Alex is cool, but what about Isabel then? She probably won't want to watch Max and I... holding hands, you know."

"It's not like Alex and Isabel are together," Maria pointed out. "She can wander alone - Isabel doesn't really need a nanny or even a good friend to tag along with. She can come with the four of us, if she wants to, I guess."

"Alright, then. Break!" But though Liz and Maria separated, ending their own little confab, it was a few minutes before they could arrange to split the group along the appropriate lines. Tess, in particular, needed to be handled very carefully, as she tended to rebel against 'suggestions' for where she should go and what she should do, and she just might stubbornly insist on sticking with whatever group Max was in. But patience paid off, because Tess expressed an interest in going to take a look at the maypole dancers, (even though it wasn't even close to May,) and Kyle immediately offered escort her over. Maria then volunteered herself and Michael to come along too, while Max said that he would head the other way and look for the master storyteller and his troupe of actors. Liz went a little overboard trying to send Alex a silent signal, (since Isabel noticed Liz mugging and asked out loud what she was trying to do,) but Alex caught the point just after Izzie had spoken up, and said that he'd go with Max, at which point Liz felt that she could agree as well without attracting Tess' suspicious attention quite so much. Isabel was starting to sense that something odd was going on by this point, and said that she'd head off to look at the weaver's fashion show, and meet up with some or all of them later.

Michael and Tess were both looking a little bit sadly off at Max and his friends as they headed off to look for the dramatic troupe, and Kyle seemed less than wild about the idea that he'd signed himself up to watch maypole dancing. "Oh, milady," Maria said to Tess once they'd passed through one lane and were just about to turn the corner. "I think that this dropped out of your beautiful gown." She held out a red-jeweled necklace, one of the semi-tacky ones that the student council table had been selling.

"Really? I didn't have anything like that," Tess said doubtfully. "This isn't some weird kind of a joke, or a..." She couldn't finish whatever thought had been in her mind."

"No, definitely not a joke, or a... a pretext for me to give it to you for any reason," Maria assured her very vehemently. "But if you don't want it..."

"She's right, I saw it fall just as you were stepping over that spot too, Tess," Michael insisted. "If you didn't know it was there - well, maybe some secret admirer had found some way to give it to you without you even realizing."

"Hmm." Tess took the necklace, cast a critical eye on the deep red color of the costume stones set in it, and then shot a quick look over at Kyle, who was trying to keep his own face as blank as possible. "Well, I'll wear this token, and perhaps the mysterious knight who wished it upon me will make himself known then. Umm... leather boy?" She gestured Kyle over, and directed him to attend her as imperiously as any true empress might have, fastening the clasp securely around her pale and smooth neck, so that the largest red stone hung just above her decolletage. "That will do, I think."

So they went and watched the maypole dancing for a bit, and then Michael's lord knight managed to find him and tell him that the joust tilting was starting, and he'd have to attend soon. So they all headed over towards the fields of battle.

-----------

"Stop it," Alex sighed.

"Make me," Max mumbled through Liz's lips, as they stood in the rear of the crowd watching a performance of 'King Arthur's death.'

There was a pause, and then all of a sudden - "Okay, I'm not kidding or joking. Seriously, you guys have to stop doing anything now because we have an alert, moving towards condition red. You brought me as a lookout, so trust me when I say..."

Much to Max's disappointment, Liz had sprung away from him when Alex's words started to penetrate. "What, Tess is coming over??"

"No, but I'm guessing that you don't want to get caught by Lord and Lady Parker."

"Huh?" Max jumped a bit, startled by the thought. "Liz's *parents* are here??" He wasn't that afraid of Liz's father, really he wasn't - but there was a good time, and a good way, for her parents to find out about the reconciliation, and this was really neither. He looked around, and sure enough, found two familiar faces not far away - neither had seen any of the three of them, and the Parkers weren't headed in their direction, being more concerned with trying to get a better look at the performers. But Max was still appreciative of the warning from Alex, knowing how little time it took somebody to look around and spot something going on.

"Hmm," Liz said, evaluating her parents closely. "Nice costumes - I'm not sure exactly what kind of medieval people they're supposed to be. Not really a lord and a lady I think." Alex nodded acceptance of that correction. "Well, guys, maybe we should go up to them and say hello? Might be better than trying to avoid them the whole time."

"Sure, I'm up for it I guess," Alex allowed, and after a moment Max nodded too. So Liz led them forward on an intercept course, and called out 'Hi mom' when she was within hailing range. It was her father who turned around first, though.

"Oh, hi Liz, umm... guys." He said. "Didn't realize that you guys were coming here too."

"I could say the same thing about *you* guys," Liz pointed out playfully.

"Oh, Karen Seaving told me about this," Mrs. Parker said. "She knows how much we both like renaissance fairs and stuff like that." She considered the younger people. "Why aren't you up there with the troupe, Troubadour Alex??"

"Well, I didn't rehearse with them," Alex pointed out, playing a fragment of a merry tune on his lute. Someone a little bit closer to the open performance space turned around and shushed them; apparently feeling that Alex's tuning didn't fit whatever scene was in progress. Alex gave the Parkers a rueful grin.

"And young mister Evans," Jeff Parker said. "Obviously dressed as a working man of some sort..."

"A boat wright," Max said, hoping to forestall any extended guessing game. "And the two of you?"

"I think that Dad's a merchant," Liz said, smiling. "And I suppose that a merchant's wife doesn't need any other role of her own, or not way back then."

"Good enough," Max said. Suddenly there was an actual trumpet call in the distance. "Hmm... I think I've had enough of the antics of the troupe. Should we go and find out what else is up?" He waved in the direction that he thought the trumpeting had come from."

The Parkers shared a look, though he hadn't really been expecting to extend the question to them - or maybe he had just been hoping that they would decline. "Umm, why don't you kids head off, if you want to," Mrs. Parker said, probably realizing how awkward it would be for Liz to have her parents tagging along in a moment like this. "We'll keep trying to get a better view here."

"Alright, good luck," Liz said, giving each parent a brief hug. "Maybe we shall meet yet again." And with that enigmatic possibility, she led the way off. Alex and Max waved their own farewells.

It didn't take too long to find the source of the trumpeting - the jousting contests. This was apparently restricted to the trained members of the medieval history society, not enthusiastic members of the community. There were a few carefully rehearsed duels that were playing out on foot - two swordsmen, one using a long pointed rapier against his opponent, who countered with a short and thin, but sharply bladed sword. Another match involved heavier weapons - a two-handed battle-axe whose edges must have been blunted, against a thick and blunt war hammer.

But Liz called their attention away from these contests to something that hadn't quite started yet. Two more knights were getting ready for action at the far ends of the tilting fields, riding handsome and strongly muscled stallions. (Of course, it would take a fairly 'buff and bulked' horse to carry anyone in armor, even if this stuff wasn't as heavy as authentic plate mail.) The joust would probably be interesting once it started, but Max wasn't quite sure why his attention had been called to the preparations. "Couldn't resist once you saw the pretty horsies?" he teased Liz.

Liz turned to give him a relatively unimpressed look. "I've never really been that horse-crazy," she said. "But look over there - the squire assisting the far knight. Isn't that Michael?"

"Oh, really?" Max said. "Why would he be..."

"Did nobody tell you?" Alex broke in. "He told us when we were getting ready to leave the school, but of course you weren't there then. He got the squire costume from one of the medieval society knights, who needed somebody to help him with the joust preparations."

"Oh, okay," Max said, nodding. "Figures. Well, if Michael is here, are the others around in the crowd too, or did he come alone?"

"Well, I don't know, Max," Liz replied.

"I... sorry, I wasn't really asking you," he said. "Just wondering out loud."

"I think it may not be long," Alex pointed out. Sure enough, it looked like the buckling and fastening was finishing up, and Max wondered how much time would actually pass before the horses charged each other for the first time.

"Okay, we're cheering for Michael's guy, right?" Liz asked, her eyes sparkling slightly.

"Yeah," Max agreed. "I think that if Maria's around, she probably will too. That might be the easiest way to find her."

It was something like two minutes from when Max had started to wonder before the tilt began in earnest, and despite a number of cheers from the crowd, the first few passes seemed fairly dull. On try number four, 'Michael's guy' managed to unseat his opponent, which apparently meant that he was allowed to keep attacking him from horseback while the other knight defended himself from on foot, setting his lance against his foot to try to ward off the oncoming mass of horse. (Some of the apparent dullness was probably because these 'knights' were in fact being exceptionally careful to not hurt each other, and even more cautious about the horses themselves.)

One round of man on horse versus man without horse was inconclusive. The next apparently had good news for each combatant - Michael's liege lost the use of his horse too, but he had managed to deliver a serious blow to the other guy. Now the fight continued with broadswords that looked terribly heavy, with each combatant trying to cut the other's feet out from under him in a way that seemed vaguely to Max, though he couldn't think of where.

When the fight was over, Max was finally able to pick out one familiar voice from the cheering, and after exchanging a few glances with his companions, he led the way through the crowd to find Maria, and with her, Kyle and Tess. "Oh, wasn't that exciting?" she gushed. "Michael was able to watch for a little bit, but he's off helping to take Jack's armor off now or something."

"Right," Max said softly, wondering how much of the 'fight script' Michael had been in on. When Jack had been unseated from his horse, he had been pretty sure that Michael had been on hand, to take away the long lance spear and make sure that Jack had his sword ready.

"Alright, so what next?" Kyle asked. "Can we get some real dinner? I think that the roast beast should be nicely done by now."

"Sounds alright to me," Michael chimed in, heading towards the group of them.

"Done already?" Liz asked.

"Yeah. His knightly honor is pretty good at taking off things by himself, and so he said that I should scram." Michael shrugged. "And I think that he wants to walk around the faire in at least some of his battle-anointed gear, in case it attracts some lusty maidens."

"Alright," Alex said. "Umm, anybody seen Isabel lately?"

"No," Tess said. "But I think I know where the fashion show stuff was supposed to be happening, so we can swing by there on our way to eat. If she isn't still there, she can find us on her own timetable."

"Okay I guess," Max agreed after a moment.

----------

"Mmm, this is really pretty tasty," Isabel said, sopping up some roast juices with her trencher and nibbling it off. "I just wish that they weren't so picky about us eating without silverware."

"Well, that's the medieval way, Iz," Michael pointed out, cheerfully tearing out a bit of meat with his bare fingers and plopping it into his mouth with gusto. Isabel shook her head in frustration.

"Well, if you're really worried about your fingers, you could try to hold the food a quarter-inch or so away from your hand with your powers," Tess whispered. "I doubt anybody'd notice..."

Isabel sighed again, and somebody poked Kyle between the ribs - he turned just enough to see for sure that it was Liz. Smiling a bit, he made his way around the picnic table with his own plate of feast-food and took the empty spot next to his lady. It seemed a little bit unfair that the medieval faire organizers could get so upset about particular anachronisms, but when there was one that they had to indulge in for their own reasons, it was off-limits. Kyle was pretty sure that disposable paper plates weren't more than two hundred years old or so.

"Umm, listen, your highness," he whispered softly. "There's actually something that I've been wanting to talk to you about... about tomorrow."

"Oh, right, that," Tess replied cheerfully, dunking a big piece of brown bread into her meat juice and devouring it. "Is all taken care of - don't worry about it."

"Umm... huh?" Kyle shook his head. "I, umm, I think I'll still worry if we don't talk a little bit more than..."

"Come on, trust me Kyle - I want to keep some of the details a Valentine's Day secret, right??" Kyle's eyes were widening. Did... did she really understand how he felt? "Just, umm, just get yourself to the Pisces cafe on Nevada Avenue, tomorrow at lunch time. Everything will be set up for a perfect date, I think."

Kyle swallowed. "And... and I bring a present for my valentine?"

"Umm, well yeah of course - that kind of goes without saying!"

"Wow, sounds great." Kyle awkwardly through his arms around Tess, and then went back to easting dinner. Liz watched the two of them and tried to figure out what was bugging her about Tess' reaction.

-----------

Later that night, after Alex jammed with the Historical society bards, and Maria won the runner-up prize for best original costume idea, Max and Liz had each changed out of their medieval outfits, (mostly in front of each other,) and were necking out on Liz's balcony. "So, Valentine's day tomorrow," Liz said, "and it looks like Kyle and Tess have finally managed to get things sorted out. Maybe this means we can actually have a big in-public Valentine's Day date??"

"Hmm..." Max ran his hand through Liz's hair and nuzzled her ear just a bit. "Maybe, except if the Kyle and Tess thing is important, maybe we'd better wait until after lunchtime to confirm any public plans."

"Hmm." Liz considered that. "Are you worried about something to do with Tess as well?"

"Umm, well, not really," he said. "Just generally very cautious when it comes to affairs of the heart around Valentine's Day." Liz giggled softly. "Why, are *you* worried about something??"

"Yeah, just the look on Tess' face yesterday when Kyle hugged her at the dinner table," Liz said. "She was telling him all the right things, as far as I could tell, but I'm not sure she was thinking of the same thing that he was."

"Well, we'll find out tomorrow I guess," Max said. And then his ears managed to catch the sound of footsteps from the corridor inside the house. "Ooh, I'd better go, and you'd better get inside."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. But she stole time to kiss him once more first.

-----------

On the morning of that Wednesday valentine, John Whitman knocked on the door of his son's bedroom. "Come on - you've got a package to sign for."

"What, right now?" Alex moaned. "It's, what..." He concentrated on the clock radio next to his bed. "Six thirty-five."

"Very good, yeah. Now, what is that in Swedish time??"

"Umm... around ten in the evening yesterday? No, that's the wrong direction..." And Alex got up, threw a dressing gown on over his pajamas, and went out to see what the package was.

-----------

"No, I'm sorry," Isabel insisted to Tess as the shorter girl pulled her blue SUV through a turn rather too fast. "Today at lunch is RIGHT off the table! You should have checked with me first before saying something like that to Kyle."

"Well, why is it such a problem?" Tess shot back. "It's not like this was right out of the blue. I asked you if..."

"You asked me if I'd go out on a date with Kyle sometime today," Isabel shot back somewhat tightly. "I said yes. That doesn't obligate me to keep the entire day open, until you fix on a specific time, just to make sure that *some* time is open. I can meet Kyle this evening or something, but for lunch I'm spoken for."

"With whom, exactly?" Tess asked curiously.

"That's not the point!!"

"Being Alex might be pointy," Tess murmured, and Isabel shot over a glare and then sighed loudly. "Okay, how about if I talk to Alex, reschedule him for after school?"

"No dice," Isabel argued, though she felt her righteous ire slipping slightly. "Reschedule *Kyle* for after school."

"That doesn't send him a great message."

"Doesn't send ALEX a great message to have you renegotiating our lunch into..."

"Into a dinner?" Tess asked.

Isabel considered that, as Tess raced them across town. "Well, that sends a more *serious* message,*" Isabel pointed out. "That I'm not sure I'm ready for, and Alex might not wanna."

"Okay, I do see your point," Tess allowed. "Well, I suppose I can ask Kyle. Just - just don't let him know that you were at lunch with your ex, okay? It would turn all of my planning into a hollow joke."

Isabel didn't reply that it had seemed like a hollow joke from the start, to her. But she thought as much to herself.

-----------

Michael and Maria exchanged their Valentine's Day presents in the courtyard just before the morning bell, with most of the gang and a few other interested spectators watching. Michael really seemed to like the big sketching pad and set of charcoal sticks that Maria had gotten for him. In her own turn, Maria was definitely struck speechless at being presented with a fiddle.

"I... I hope that it's okay to get something like this," he said, smiling weakly. "I... I know that you're busy with other things and don't have much time to teach yourself to play, but - but the music in your soul is one of the things that I love most about you, and I couldn't resist the chance to give you another way to let it out. Alright?"

"Yeah, umm... it's a big step, but I do accept," she told him, and gave him a big hug and a kiss for thanks. "Thank you so much."

"Well given on both sides," Max put in. "They're both tools of the arts, when you think about it."

"Yeah, cool," Tess chimed in, though she still seemed a little preoccupied.

After first period, Max found a note in his locker from Liz. "Bad news I think. Tess told Kyle that she had to reschedule his Valentine's Day surprise until dinnertime, without really saying why. So - so why don't we sneak off somewhere private to spend the evening together and exchange our gifts? I have an idea for where. Just meet me half an hour after school lets out in the parking lot."

Max smiled to himself, and folded the note up into his pocket. Just then, Alex came by, chatting to Maria about the 'home band' program that Leanna had sent him a copy of that morning.

------------

"Well, I'm glad that we're here, whoever suggested it," Isabel said to Alex, as they got into a booth. "Not that I'm trying to steal you away from Leanna or anything - but, but I think that we're still very dear to each other's hearts, so it's a good thing that we should be spending some time together on Valentine's day." She paused a moment. "I, umm, I even got you a little something."

Alex grinned. "Well, I love little things. You wanna hand it over now, or wait until after lunch?"

"Umm, now's probably good." Isabel reached into her purse, brought out a little dark blue box, and handed it over. Alex opened the box up, and a slightly bemused expression crossed over his face. "Cuff links?" And then he noticed something else about the little decorative studs.

"I, I had them specially made, a few days after New Year's," Isabel said softly. "Was going to give them to you on the anniversary of the camping trip, but - umm, well, you were in Sweden by then." Alex traced the faces of each cuff link, on which were faintly inscribed designs - a whirlpool galaxy on one, a circular planet with a thin ring upon the other. "Is it too weird that I'm giving you these things?"

"Umm... no, I guess not. Certainly not too weird in a practical sense, because I don't think they'll attract much attention from anyone who doesn't know what the symbols mean," Alex said. "You've worn Atherton's whirlpool necklace in public, after all." He sighed. "On a more personal level - I guess I'm wondering why you picked these designs, though."

"Well, I'm not sure exactly," Isabel allowed. "It's not as if we really know what the crests mean, ourselves. But - but whatever weird secrets my heritage might have, I do want to share them with you - if you're willing." She sighed.

"Okay, thanks," Alex said, smiling at that sentiment. "I, umm, I didn't buy anything for you. Couldn't exactly think of anything that could both do justice to how I feel about you and fit the mood of this understated little get-together."

Isabel's smile nearly beamed off of her face. "That's okay. I don't need a valentine from you. Just hearing you admit that you still... that you still care about me that much is like a big present, actually... even though that sounds cheesy to admit."

"Eh." Alex figured that the best reply to it, then, was to pretend to ignore it. As it just happened, the waitress came by to take their orders, which served as a useful diversion.

The two of them talked about many things over lunch - including some of the saga of Laurie Dupree thus far, and what Sweden had been like, and the events of the Christmas season in Roswell, which Alex had also missed, visiting his grandparents in a small town halfway across the state. And they chatted a bit about books and not-so-new music, (Isabel had found a few vinyl albums from the fifties in her attic, and was enjoying them more than she'd ever admit to someone she didn't feel very close to.)

"So, you'll be talking to Leanna after classes?" Isabel asked uncertainly when their food was nearly all eaten. Alex nodded. "Wouldn't it have been less late in Sweden to call at lunch time? Not that I'm complaining or anything."

"Yeah, but she'd still be at work," Alex explained.

"Oh, she's got an after-school job?" Isabel asked. "What does she do?"

"Oh, she's a sales attendant at a department store. Perfume counter mostly, though she gets switched around a bunch."

"Okay." Isabel nodded. Once they were back on campus, she mentioned. "I'm glad that we were able to do this now, actually. Tess wanted me to go on a blind date lunch with this other guy, but - well, I argued her into bumping him, so I have to have dinner with him."

Alex's head was suddenly racing. "A blind date dinner? Oh, that always goes well." Isabel chuckled. "Who is it? Do I know the guy??"

"Um, yeah I think that you do, and I'm not telling you the name," Isabel said after a moment. "It'd be too weird. Just - don't get too upset about it, okay?"

"Um, alright I'll try," Alex told her. As Isabel rushed off to her fifth period class, he tried to figure out why what she had said was nagging at him.

-----------

"Well, I'm here, and you're here," Max said, hurrying up to the Jeep to join Liz, where she was scanning the area for anybody she might be nervous about. Max smiled slightly when he realized that both of them were holding wrapped presents. "So where do we go from here?"

"Get in the car and drive," Liz said, a smile playing over her lips. "North of town along the main road. I'll let you know where to turn off."

"Umm, okay," Max agreed, a bit uncertain. But Liz kissed him once they were both in the Jeep and before he turned the ignition key, and the touch of her lips drove most of his doubts away.

"So, any plans for the weekend?" he asked after getting downtown, where the Crashdown and the UFO center stood across the street from each other. "I realize that it's a bit early, but..."

"Well, I have to work a really long shift on Saturday," Liz admitted. "And there's the history paper that's due in next Tuesday." She sighed. "Aside from that, I guess I haven't really prepared for anything - how about you?"

"Hmm... well, it'd be nice to go see a movie with someone special," he decided, smiling. "There's that wizards fantasy one - the reviews so far are probably good enough to keep us away from Buckley Point." Liz giggled softly.

About midway between the Roswell city limits and the Puhlman ranch, Liz directed Max off on a small desert road to the right, which took them into a rocky valley that was lovely in an odd way. And right at the deepest point of the valley, there was a small shack with a few other cars parked around it. "What is this place?"

"Marky Robson's," Liz said, gesturing for Max to park and get out of the car. The other vehicles weren't actually clustered around the structure as closely as they had seemed at first - that was just an optical illusion because they were the only things that Max had seen in the dimness. Some of the cars had couples in them, a few families with kids or larger groups, and one little subcompact seemed to have only the driver inside. Most of the people were eating, although one couple seemed to be just holding hands and listening to the car radio.

Max reached out to take Liz's hand as she led the way into the shack, which had no lights except for the daylight coming in through several windows. "Hey, Marky," Liz said. "How's it shaking?"

'Marky' was a grizzled man in his late fifties, tending to several different things on a stovetop range, and a completely separate frying grill, with a dexterity that surprised Max. "Not too bad, not too bad. How about you, Lizzie?"

"Doing alright. Just thought we'd stop in for a few dogs and the regular side."

"And who's yer friend?"

Liz looked up at Max and exploded in laughter. "Umm, no, we're not just friends actually. This is Max."

"Okay - two dogs, you said? And the regular side?"

"Yep," Liz agreed. "Oh, and cherry cokes if you have a... oh, no, I guess... darn it."

"Sorry, sweetie," Marky said, shooting an odd look over to a bare countertop in another part of the shack. "But you can get diet Pepsi, or seven up, or a..."

"Diet Pepsi sounds fine to me," Max put in. Marky shot a look over at him, and Liz murmured a vague agreement. Over the next few minutes, as Liz and Marky exchanged small talk that he couldn't quite follow, two cans of diet Pepsi with little bits of ice clinging to them appeared on the table separating the door of the shack from Marky's working space, and then sturdy paper bowls filled with little diced and fried potato chunks, and finally two ENORMOUS sausages cradled in buns that had to be easily more than foot-longs.

"Eighteen fifty," the proprietor announced. Liz took out a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it on the table with an odd double-tapping gesture, then started gathering up their food. She didn't wait for change, not that Marky seemed inclined to give her any, and the two of them made their way back out to the car.

"So what's the deal with this place?" Max asked softly. "I mean, umm, it seems like a strange place for a..." He couldn't seem to find the right words to describe any of it.

"I know," Liz said. "But it makes him happy to work out here in the middle of nowhere, and to know that the people who really appreciate his cooking will come out to enjoy it here with him." She sighed. "He can't be making enough to live on like this, but he's doing what he loves." She sighed. "Mark used to run a restaurant in town, at North Sycamore and Berrendo. His advice and friendly help saved the Crashdown several times, back when my mom and dad were just starting out with the place. But when his wife passed away, four years ago - running the Garrison got to be too much for him - he sold the business and it got turned into a Chili's franchise."

"Ooh, I hate hearing about things like that," Max said, trying some of the hash browns. Pretty good.

"Yeah, well, wait until you taste his dog," Liz said, with a wide grin. And she took a very gusto bite off the end of her own.

----------

Kyle checked his reflection in a window, tucked his fingers into a pocket for a second to make sure that there was a small package inside, and headed through the restaurant doors. He scanned the dining room looking for Tess.

She wasn't there.

He checked again, wondering if she was running late. She stubbornly insisted on being absent.

Just as he was about to step over to the host and ask for a table for two, however, a familiar face hit him. (Not literally.) And then the owner of the face seemed to recognize him too, and Isabel put on a smile that didn't seem to quite fit. "Hey, Kyle, over here!"

"What's going on?" he said, heading over. Isabel was looking very beautiful, in a red dress, but that didn't really help to answer his questions. "Did Tess send you over here to..."

He would never be sure what he'd have finished that sentence with, because Isabel quickly replied, "Yeah."

"Yeah, what?" Isabel looked blank. "Why did she tell you to come here?"

"Umm... well, to be your surprise Valentine," Isabel muttered as Kyle sat down. She looked incredibly uncomfortable in the situation, and pulled her neckline up slightly in a doomed attempt to get it to reveal less cleavage. "She, umm, she said that you..." Now Isabel couldn't seem to find an end to her own sentence.

"It was supposed to be Tess herself," Kyle whispered, but as he said that, he realized that Tess had never said that. He had *assumed*, and that was presumably the reason why their signals and reactions hadn't been quite lining up. "I, umm, I'm sorry that you had to get dragged into... excuse me, but I've gotta go."

"What the heck?" Isabel asked. "I mean, this is awkward for me to, but do you have to just..." Kyle didn't hear any more of what she was saying, because he was already back out the restaurant door, and not, (to his considerable surprise,) heading back to where he'd parked his car. Recklessly, he charged off across the street with the yellow light, nearly got hit by a big blue pickup truck driven by a smoking cattle rancher, down the sidewalk for about fifteen storefronts, through a dark alley, and jogged for two more blocks before suddenly finding that his chase was at an end. He reached out for the shoulder of a short teenage girl and spun her around.

"EEEEI!" Tess exclaimed. "Kyle, come on, don't scare me like that if you don't wanna get blasted past the streetlights. What's goin-- Hey, aren't you supposed to be deciding on appetizers with Isabel?"

"Am I supposed to be deciding--" The question struck Kyle as enormously funny, but he didn't want to lose the initiative by erupting into laughter, especially since Tess might get upset by not clueing in on the joke, so he forced the humor back into his mind. "No, Tess, I am definitely NOT supposed to be with Isabel tonight. At least... I don't think so, and I really don't think she does either." This was starting to get him off track, so rather than stick his foot into his mouth again, Kyle took a chance and brought it near to Tess'.

She was surprised, shocked beyond words in that moment that was as long as Kyle could hesitate, but she wasn't pushing him away or disgusted. So he kissed her as well as he could and as hard as he dared, and wrapped his arms around her. Their eyes both closed as the two teenagers pressed their lips together on the sidewalk, surrounded by interested strangers willing to get into the valentine's day spirit, and when it was over Kyle looked into her beautiful face for a long moment, breathing heavily, until Tess opened her own eyes. She was looking back at him with a tiny bit of amazement and wonder written in the curve of her mouth and the set of her cheeks.

"You... you want me?" she asked in a tiny little voice.

"Nobody but you, my funny... funny little valentine," Kyle managed to say as his voice cracked slightly.

"But, but when I saw the flash of your dream girl, I... Ohh." Kyle shook her slightly and made a questioning 'hmm?' sound. "Umm, I guess that maybe I managed to misinterpret what I was seeing in your flash," she whispered towards his ear.

"Ahh, yeah. And - and when you said that you were arranging a perfect Valentine's get-together for me, I misunderstood that too."

"Oh?" Tess paused a moment, and then burbled with an uncontainable laugh. "Ohh... you thought that I was going to be the--" Kyle nodded. "Well, umm, well I guess that we could, now, huh? The Pisces isn't too far from here, is it?"

"No," Kyle agreed. "Only seemed to take me a few minutes to run here, when I realized that it was Isabel..." He trailed off. "Were you staying in the area, but out of sight, because you were curious how the set-up would go, Tess?"

"Umm, maybe a little," she admitted. "But how did you know to find me here??"

"Well - to be honest, I don't know," Kyle admitted. "I - I just started running, and maybe it was a little bit like my heart was leading me onward." Tess gave him a dubious look as they started walking back down the street. "Well, you try to explain it any other way, if you like."

"Not on this day, of all days, I won't," she promised him. "Umm... I don't have a gift for you, valentine. I - I didn't even realize that we would be..."

"That's alright," Kyle insisted. "Just being with you today is enough." He sighed happily. "Do you want yours??"

"Ooh!" Suddenly it was evident to Kyle that Tess was restraining herself very hard from bouncing up and down. "Umm, maybe, but I - I think that I'd better leave that until after we've eaten." She sighed. "Partially because maybe I'll have gotten used to the idea that all of this is happening."

Kyle smiled. "Well, I'm still spinning a bit at the fact that it was this easy to tell you that I like you, and for you to agree to be my valentine." He sighed. "Did - umm, did you know that you liked me before this? And if so - why didn't you just make a move on your own behalf, instead of dragging Izzie into it, of all people." He sighed. "Or was it that hard to realize that I... that I might like you back?"

Tess flushed prettily. "I... I'm not sure if I can really explain how I felt - and maybe it would be better not to try. We're - we're here, and we've sorted things out, and I'm very grateful that you had the nerve to take fate - and me - into your hands like that." Kyle smiled. "We can leave it at that for one day, right??"

"Hmm, yeah I guess," Kyle admitted after a moment. And he slipped an arm around her shoulders, so that their bodies came a bit closer together as they walked. It felt so comfortable that he felt like she'd been his girlfriend for years - which, hello, was jumping the gun in so many ways! Oh well. Time enough for stuff like that later.

Isabel must have left the cafe by the time they got back to the Pisces, and the host made a big fuss when they tried to take the table, since neither of them had formally been seated there, even if Kyle had sat down for maybe ten seconds. "The lady who was here," he said frostily, "paid for her drink, somewhat grudgingly I believe, and that fulfills the reservation."

"WHAT?" Tess exclaimed. "It was a reservation for dinner. If anybody had actually been having dinner, they'd have been here for at least..."

"We do not hold reservations by ending time, or for 'dinner' or 'drinks' specifically," he said, using his best frosty host routine. "We hold a table for a particular starting time..."

"Hey, buddy, come on, give us a break, okay?" Kyle pleaded. "There has already been a series of misunderstandings worthy of making a sitcom from. Now, we're willing to give a little bit - what table it is doesn't really matter, right honey?" Tess blinked. "But Tess is the one who made the reservation, and it was under my name, right? Kyle Valenti?"

"Umm, yes I suppose so," he muttered. "I believe we can manage somehow."

And as the host bustled off, Tess looked up at Kyle and whispered, in a voice so faint he could hardly make it out... "Did you just call me honey?"

"Yes, I did, and I liked it," he declared expansively. "Valentine's perogative."

Tess stood next to him and waited silently for a very long time. Then, in another small voice, "I liked hearing it too."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Epilog

"Oh, hi guys!" Tess called out as she rounded the corner of the building and looked into the Crashdown parking lot. Liz was just in the middle of getting out of Max's Jeep, Max giving her a hand as she did so, and they both froze, and turned their heads towards her, as if they'd been caught in the act. "Oh, sheesh, come on. Don't - well, actually, hold that pose, just so that we can catch up." She reached out to take Kyle's hand and pull him along.

"Um, Tess, you..." Liz broke off her attempts to form a complete sentence and shook her head, absolutely unable to deal with what her senses were showing her. "Did, umm, did you guys..."

"We had a pretty great valentine's day dinner," Kyle confirmed, smiling at Liz, and on the spur of the moment offering Max a friendly thump on the back. "And you??"

"Well, we, umm..." Max seemed to be having nearly as much difficulty as Liz in gathering his thoughts.

"Come on, Max," Tess insisted. "You... you don't need to hide anything from me anymore, really you don't. Frankly - well, the two of you weren't doing so great a job hiding that something Valentine-y was going on, even before I managed to, umm, to persuade Kyle to give me the lowdown. And here's a headline for you: 'I DON'T CARE ANYMORE.'" She spoke the last statement very clearly and distinctly, though not terribly loud, and reached up slightly with her arm to wrap it around Kyle's shoulders tightly, just to help them get the right idea.

"You... you don't?" Liz gasped out. "Oh, thank the great green Arkleseizure, or something like that! I... I didn't like sneaking around and hiding this anymore than you like having us keep things from you, I guess. I just - just didn't want you to overreact or anything..."

"I, umm, I think I get that," Tess allowed, and started leading the way towards the front door of the Cafe. "I... I've been a little obsessive sometimes about your dream boy, and - and we all need to stick together. That's critical, and so you couldn't allow relationship-ey angst to break up the pod squad." Liz nodded, carefully keeping a composed expression on her face. "But, yeah... as much as I still hold my dreams of hot Max love close to a corner of my heart, umm... nah, we never really were gonna make it, were we bud?"

"Umm..." Max still hesitated. "Pretty much no. My heart was stolen away before I ever met you." And he hugged Liz and kissed her - because of the offhand way he'd made the gesture, his lips ended up making contact with her hair, but neither of them seemed to mind. "Oh, and I owe you this." Max cuffed Tess on the shoulder, not hard.

"Hey, um... oh, should I even ask what that was for?"

"Let's see... For pretty much psyching me into kissing you, for doing your level best to spread trouble in my relationship and keep us apart?" Tess blushed slightly and nodded.

"Okay, I deserved it," she admitted. "But let's move on to other things." There was a booth free - the Crashdown not being a particularly popular Valentine's destination, and the four of them slid in, everyone sitting next to his or her sweetie-pie. "Did, umm, did you guys already exchange presents?"

"Well, yeah," Liz said. "You wanna see?"

"Sure." Liz fished out the necklace that Max had presented her with, and also with a fancily engraved diary, and Max showed Tess and Kyle the kaleidoscope that Liz had managed to put together that showed dizzying patterns of shooting stars and whirling planets against a black background when you held it up to the light. Tess brought out a little batch of polished wooden sticks connected by strings and joints, and demonstrated how it could be folded up into a tiny model chair. "Umm, why did you pick that Kyle?"

"It... it's in commemoration of a Valenti family moment," Tess said, "and I appreciate it quite a lot. So, umm, what loot did anybody else get?"

"Well, let's see, Michael gave Maria a violin - you weren't there this morning, were you..."

"Wait a second," Liz interrupted. "What about you, Kyle? Didn't Tess have anything for you??"

"Umm - no," he admitted. "She - well, she didn't realize until the last moment that she was going to have a Valentine this year."

"But - but she was making such a big deal out of arranging this big date for you, Kyle," Max said, curious now. Tess was blushing again.

"She was indeed," Kyle replied. "But... but she didn't think that she was the one who I wanted to be out on a big date with. Like an incredible best friend, she was pulling out all of the stops just to fix me up with someone else." A pause. "But that didn't even come close working, and I think in the long run Alex will be glad that it didn't, assuming that the Swedish chick isn't his Miss Rightsven."

"Alex will be glad..." Liz replied. "Oh, lordy. Isabel? You thought that Kyle had the hots for Isabel?"

"Well, can you really blame me?" Tess said. "I mean, she's gorgeous, and tall, and impossibly..."

"Like I'd want to date a girl who's ~~that much taller than me," Kyle laughed. "And who likes to wear high heels, too."

"Well, I think that you should try to get Kyle a present too," Max put in. "Having your valentine be truly unexpected only gets you an extension, not an 'out'."

"Hmm... really?" Tess turned to look at Kyle. "Do you want something a day or two late?"

"Actually, right now I'm not sure I care," Kyle admitted. "Put a little extra thought into my birthday present, maybe - that's two months away."

"Alright, I will," Tess insisted.

And they all ordered alien smoothies and milkshakes when the waitress came by, to celebrate how well the night had turned out.

-----------

CODA:

Five days after Valentine's, while spying on the Sheriff's station, Michael and Maria spotted Laurie Dupree getting taken back to Pinecrest and headed off in pursuit, ending up rescuing her from the mysterious alien shooter and driving west towards the Arizona state line. The sketchpad, which Michael had stashed in the Jetta's trunk, turned out to be useful in breaking the ice with Laurie, since she remembered her Grandpa drawing for her when she was a little girl.

Digging up Frazier woods in an attempt to save the planet Earth from pandemic, Kyle and Tess ended up getting trapped in the underground Gandarium nest and nearly suffocating before Max and Liz were able to dig them out.

Alex tried to save Isabel from the alien Gandarium queen, and both of them ended up being held hostage by Grant Sorenson half the way to Tucson. A week later, Isabel found out that Leanna had sent Alex a Dear John letter, and asked him out to dinner. Alex said yes.

Tess got Kyle a see-through teddy for his birthday. He wasn't the one who wore it that night.

THE END.


End file.
